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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

UNITED STATES OF AMEKIOA, 



VALKYRIA, 



OR 



CHAPLETS OF MARS 



BY 



y^ 



MEL-INDA JENNIE PORTER. 



The glory of our Troy this day doth lie 

On his fair worth and single chivalry."— Shakspbare. 




14 1^1 . 



NEW YORK: 

W. B. SMITH & CO., 

27 Bond Street. 



[m\) 



TT 






copyright, 1881, 
By M. Jennie Porter, Atlanta, Ga. 



TO 

MY BROTHERS-MILITAIRE, 
THE "CITIZEN SOLDIERY," 

THIS FAINT TRIBUTE TO VALOR, 

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY AND PATRIOTICALLY 

DEDICATED. 



OUR LAND. 
"THE LAND OF MEMORIES." 

" A land without ruins is a land without memories ; a land 
without memories is a land without liberty. A land that 
wears a laurel-crown may be fair to see, but twine a few sad 
cypress leaves around the brow of any land, and be that land 
beautiless and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated 
coronet of sorrow and it wins the sympathy of the heart and 
history. Crowns of roses fade ; crowns of thorns endure. 
Calvaries and crucifixes take deepest hold of humanity, — 
the triumphs of might are transient, they pass away and are 
forgotten — the sufferings of right are graven deepest on the 
chronicles of nations." — Rev. A. J. Ryan. 



VALKYRIA. 



The web of life is woven weirdly — brocade of Good and 
111 — blue-eyed Bonas, and dodder-dowerd Malas, — 

A path, with now a bridal-banquet of Souls united One, — 
and there, the dismal Caves of Life's lone Machpelahs, 

Where we laid the dead Rachels of our love, embalmed in 
asphodel-of-tears, and cypress-wreaths of Sorrow, — 

And because we could not die, we bravely journey'd on, 
wistful still to win the peace of Hope's impearl'd To- 
morrow. 

Crimson-hearted roses may fade to tints oifeuille mortem 
and fondest dreams of love may sleep in silent tombs, 

Perfum'd in orient balms, beside love's holiest idols shat- 
ter'd, and urned in sweetest Memory's gorgeous, 
glooms ; 

And Hope" may falter ofttimes, weeping o'er her darling 
dead, where immortelles droop e'er their palest plumes 

Above the Voiceless there, that erst had play'd their per- 
fumed fonts of sweetness against our heart's encrim- 
son'd bloom ; — 

And imperial truth-souled friends of all our sorrow^ 
stricken, Red-Cross, pain-empurpled years, — 

And tender hands that twin'd the bridal rose of happiness 
may die and leave us but a heritage of tears ; — 



6 VALKYRIA. 

Or, when the lilac-buds of love's first waking are burst- 
ing into bloom, Absence, with its wormwood may 
sweep between. 

And leave, athwart the gladsome glory of life's loveliest 
and best, a sleepless shadow, darkly on its sheen : — 

But — the soul bereft and sick, may suffer still, and Smile 
and Blush may cheat the World with charactery exter- 
nal. 

The while the seven-seals unbrok'n of its crimson fount 
flows on in secret pain, and struggles for the mastery 
eternal ! 

For there are wounds too deep for Gilead-balmstoheal : — 
and faiths so white I would not touch them with un- 
holy hands, 

A-while the broken heart may vainly woo forgetfulness, 
beneath the rosie-ardent-amber'd skies of foreign 
lands ! 



Queen of the Fairies — and Empress of Eden-soul'd 
Flow'rs, Springtide, was trailing the robe of her roy- 
alty's rose-cov'ring ^ * 

All over fair Southland's domain, sweet as a summer- 
cloud weeping for joy 'bove multiflora-hedges low- 
hov'ring : 

And the Sweetbrier Qx\-sympathy with Acacias' con- 
cealed love^ was climbing above the Clematis, 

Where artifice crouched in the clusters, and plotted 
'gainst the Olives of peace^ and Myrtles of love in 
their bliss 1 



VALKYR I A, 7 

While the Clover's sweet-scented i-ndustry, left the 
Buttercups to hoard up the golden riches of the 
Wheat 

That shock'd all its sheaves of prosperity, as other rich 
Cereals smiling, wav'd their kist-hands with beck- 
'nings but sweet ! 

And the Reeds of god Pan sighed through their syrinx, 
sweet music\.o theBondmen who toiled contented, 

('And wrought days of peace among the White-Fleece of 
King Cotton,) 'till their White Brothers met and dis- 
sented ! — 

Then — the Tide of Secession that sever'd the States, 

swept sea-ward and South-ward to the orange-groves 

girdling the Gulf, 
And a royal Republic brave-born, beckon'd her Sons to 

assemble — for a martial defense of herself : — 
Like the chain encircling the throat of a Princess — a string 

of Persia's most priceless pearls of rare beauty, 
When brokefi by forcing the strand, some sweet sister 

pearls glided off (and remained, believing it duty.) — 

'Till the hand of Fraternity should string them again, to 

bejewel the bosom of Liberty fair — 
The Goddess we love as united our Own, and whose 

reigning is royal of Right, and sceptre protecting and 

rare ! 

Morning — rising from her couch-of-roses and dewy 
bath-of-perfume, look'd upon a Southern home by 
Chattahoochee's stream. 



8 VALKYR I A, 

That rear'd aristocratic walls of white, back-ground and 
embower'd by beryl-groves of Cedar that wove a 
witching dream ; 

And all the pearly-pebbl'd walks were winding tenderly 
around parterres of ottar-hearted, tropic-tinted blooms, 

And orioles in orange-branches swung, the while the 
mock-bird trill'd his gladness from out the apple- 
blossom-glooms ! — 

A sacred spell of sweetness pervaded all the place — to 
e'en the panell'd lintels where all who pass'd might 
read of " Home, sweet Home,'* 

The tender while the roses broke their hearts, and Love 
festoon'd his bloomful myrtles from vestibule to dome ! 

As starry-jasmines wove a milky-way, where passion- 
hearted honey-suckles hung their fragrant fringes 
along the colonnading. 

Beneath whose pillar'd spanning, in royal years of old, 
sweet Love had plighted troth, by moonlight prome- 
nading : — 

But — lo ! that Morn, Aurora-veil'd and tearful, beheld 

a change come o'er that Dream-of-Eden — a Cloud that 

cleft its Sunlight, 
And over all its promise fair of ripest fruitage uncrush'd, 

a nameless woe now left the shadow of its blight ; — 
The Orpheus-harp of happiness was hush'd, as Joy's 

ruby lips ceas'd to chant of love — when the Lov'd One 

took his flight, — 
And the rosy-astral-light burn'd low within that perfum'd 

alabaster-vase, throughout the War's four-years of 

Night ! 



VALKYRIA. ^ 

Just down the winding avenue (beneath the old Live- 
oaks that lisp'd of "Liberty" between their long grey 
beards of moss, 

Where many an acorn fell when the squirrels came to play, 
and blushing peach-blows lay where the winds co- 
quettish toss). 

Stood a lordly Knight in garb of argile Grey, with epau- 
lets-of-gold, and sun-beam-braid embossing all his 
rank, 

The while his noble war-horse impatient champ'd the bit, 
while the star that shone upon his housing, twinkled, 
o'er his silk'n flank. — 

** Hope shines like the plume of Navarre on his crest. 
And gleams on the glaive at his side, 

" For his courage is keen and his honor is bright 
As the trusty Toledo he wears to the fight, 

Newly wrought in the forges of Spain, 
And this weapon, like all he has brandished for Right 

Will never be dimned by a stain." 

But words are wont to tell the Tale of Tears — {that 

Hist'ry's writ' in Blood) of One who clung enclasp'd 

despairfully about him. 
And of her breaking heart, question'd there the truth 

unanswer'd yet — of why — or how — or when her 

heart could do without him ? 
The lovely flower-face, whose starry eyes shone bright 

above the warmest creole-tinted cheeks all wet with 

tears. 



lo VALKYRIA. 

Was upward lifted unto his, the while the anguish'd soul 
was thrilling all the desolation of those absent years. 

And then as Time — all tearless — and with steady hands 
that trembled not, unrelenting tore them swift apart, 

Her rose-lips (blanch'd) press'd their precious imprint — 
(just as we leave our last kiss upon our darling dead) — 
the while he clasp'd her to his heart ; 

And all of Love's Infinity heard the crushing of their 
heart-chords, while Hope was weeping with the wil- 
lows, 

And as they lisp'd their last " God bless you! " the gath- 
'ring gale of grief was lashing all the soul with anguish- 
crested billows ! 

While e'en the dusky Slaves — belov'd and loving, press'd 

thick and close to clasp the Master's hand, and bid 

him to return, — 
(Ah ! — the World may have its "say," — but memory s 

sweet and tender links shall bind the Two, while 

Southern suns shall burn I ) 
With heads — (the old grey heads' we White Ones rev- 

'rence now), all bared and bow'd to plight their faith 

that liv'd through all his absent years, — 
And then the Knight-in-Grey rode swift away, (with 

valiant Hosts) while all about that Home shone dimly 
through their tears. 

But Hope, at last recover' d, lifts up a radiant face, and 
with faith-bejewel'd fingers points proudly to the Tri- 
umphs that span the measur'd way, 



VALKYR lA. II 

And whispers of a swift and sweet return of he who left 

in tears — but a Victor must return some early glory- 

garland'd day, 
And then true Patriotism triumph'd o'er Despair — (for 

at the '* parting" tears must flow — or the anguish'd 

heart must bi^eak), — 
And tender hands wrought bravely — with brave hearts 

— to bear their Standard proudly above the smoke and 

carnage that War left in its wake ! 

(For Where's the Nation's glory, whose Women nobler 

help'd their Warriors to win the Wreath-of- Freedom 

that crowns America^ — 
Be they blue-eyed-blondes, brave-hearted of Northern 

Mauds and Oras, — or Southern-soul'd, elfin-curl'd Co- 

rines or dusky-eyed Zuleikas ? 

But — far Northward — beyond the Cumberland's blue 

sweep, another scene was passing sad, where the 

myosotis lisp'd '^forget-me-not ! " 
And while nasturtium-bells were pealing '' patfiotismy* 

pale lips whisper'd low — Come back a Conqueror ! or^ 

conquer d, come ye not ! 
Where brightly burning Constellations light their crystal 

candelabra a-glow in the argent-arch of Northern 

skies, 
And the Tea-rose — '' always lovely!'' earlier smitten by 

the snows, yields her fragrant heart, and sooner than 

her Southern-sister dies : — 

Eastward — from the fearful Fall of great Niagara's veil 
. of foam, and awful murmur of her Majesty, 



12 VALKYRTA, 

The spreading Speedwell (nerevica) tells a tender tale to 
the trustful tourist, of fond '' female fidelity.'' — 

On — through the fiower-flodden fields and clove-pink 
plains of Pennsylvania's sweetest sylvans, — 

Beyond the roll of Newport's surf and dash of ocean- 
spray, — by Central-Parks of pansies and fountain-float 
of swans ; — 

The roll-call echoed along the tidal- waves of war — es- 
trang'd " Brothers " beck'ning to ** Battle's magnificent- 
ly stern array," 

(Father — son — and kindred — " so near and yet so 
far," — to meet them rank to rank — and blow for blow 
— as four years ..." flash'd the red artillery." — ) 

V^\\\\q Imagination — lupine-\\x\\i' d oi "amaranthine flow- 
ers," — flies onward through the Myrtles-of-Italia, and 
lemon-grovelets won of Ceylon — 

(Conservatory-nurtur'd into bloom,) to grace a royal 
Home, that rear'd its granite-sculptur'd columns upon 
the rolling Hudson ! — 

Wistful e'er in its wand'ring to hear the softest sigh of 
sympathy that touches tender thrillings in hearts that 
lisp of love, 

Throb they truth against the bonnie " Blue," or dash their 
rrimson soul-spray all o'er the " Grey," beneath the 
Venus-stars holding tryst above ! 

The velvet lawn of emerald, and elms, swept their greeny 
gladness (adream of Southern sweetness) down to 
the river's edge, 



VALKYR I A, 15 

And the snowdrop white of *' Consolatioiil' starr'dall the 

fairy-grotoes hidd'n in the dasied-sward beneath the 

roses' hedge : 
The fountains play'd unceasing — plashing playful all o'er 

the lilies wax'n, or sculptur'd Cupids that crouch'd 

beneath the spray, 
While through the low French windows floated charm- 

ful chorals, that mingl'd all their vocal sweetness with 

the birds that carroll'd all the day. 

'Twas night upon the Ocean, and stately ships sail'dout 
to Ports of Peace beyond the coral-stranded seas, 

But the olive branch was sway'd upon the shore of Fac- 
tions, and something like a '^Farewell'' was sighing 
through the trees : 

'Twas night upon the Hudson — the guelder rose was 
dreaming of white twin-sisters that slept in Southern 
woods 

Where Spring had plighted tender troth to Summer, who 
wore her gemm'd betrothal-ring in the sweetest of ex- 
pectant moods ! 

And the Lagerstrcemea lifted crimpen veils of rosy crape 

with flush of myrtles through — eloquent of loves that 

fadeth never, — 
As if nor Death — nor Separation would need no sable 

crapes-of-mourning — but all of life be joyance forever! 
And reposing Nature — like a Sleeping Beauty slumberM 

sweetly, cradled perfum'd within the softest light of 

moons — 



T4 VALKYRIA. 

A-like the bay-buds born of beauty through the stilly 
nights of Louisiana's orange-zon'd lagoons ! 

And — as e"er tender Time shall tell — constance- 
crown'd " co72Ju gal-love " was lisp'd beneath some neu- 
tral-tinted-lichen-boss'd old Linden-Tree, 

While fragrant-freighted zephyrs fann'd Love's flushed 
cheeks and toyed with his perfum'd curls so wantonly 
and free ; 

But the Song that erst had smote his heart with sweet- 
ness at dewy dawn, or twilight, had sighed itself to 
sleep ; — 

A lovely Hebe — his love's first bride, stood mournful at 
his side, with bloom-eyes shadow'd by sweeping lids 
a-while the soul did weep. 

Within that dream-of-star-glow, beside the silver-flooded- 

river, stood an ardent Knight-of-Blue, to bid his lov'd 

— ''adieu''''.— 
(Sail'd with Stars-and-Stripes, a boat, that sped him 

Southward, was waiting silent there — and Time was 

telhng moments fast, he knew :) 
But Promise plighted much to that precious One he held 

so warmly to his throbbing heart, — of triumph — with 

soon return — and rest, 
The while her burning tears blanched all the blooms of 

Hope, as Duty dashed the Light out, with which her 

happy home was blest ! 

That bloom-eyed bride laid her head caressing — of 
wheaten curls (a Cupid's gold'n net) — upon his manly 
breast, and wept love's light out there, 



VALKYR I A. 15 

While the anguish of a life-time was souTd ivithhi that 
second^ and mingl'd all its sobbing with the heart's 
wild pray'r — 

" Oil, — God ! my ^ Fat her, keep my Darling ever within 
Thy boundless love ! " — as, with one last wild kiss, 
he tore him quick away, 

And swiftly sailed the boat that bore that precious bur- 
den beyond her tearful gaze, — to join his Blue Bat- 
talions that waited far away. 

Thus they parted weeping,by the Hudson's villa-broidered 
banks, while the pleasure-boat rock'd lonely beneath 
the palisades, forsak'n — 

As their souls, in rush of sweetest memories that clung 
around their Past, by convulsive griefs were shaken. 

Oh ! that Morji memorable that dawned so sad in South- 
land, where a million hearts were broken 'neath floods, 
of tears so blinding ! — 

Oh ! that mtforgotten Night, whose twilight veil'd the 
Northland, as severed souls were sobbing all along the 
Hudson's winding ! 



And then a-down dewy-dells dashed with snow-storm of 

hawthorns a-drift, burn'd the camp-fires low through 

the night, 
While the white Magnolia-vales all echoed the boom of 

Calebiad, and the bursting of bombs in their blight : — 
And invincible Iron-Clads were coasting — bombarding 

the ports that had anchor'd a Century of Liberty, 



i6 VALKYRIA. 

While the dread Moloch-of-War was wading with Mars 
sou]-deep in the blood, through America's cities of 
safety ! 

And our Altars-of-Sacrifice were flowing with the life- 
encrimson'd blood of her bravest and truest of Sons ! 

Yea, — Life ebbed and flow'd like the sea^ while no Val- 
ley-of-Ajalon was lighted by the staying of suns ! 

For the valiant Grey-hosts, and brave Blue-Battalions, in. 
deadly conflict had met, within the margin of a South- 
ern sandal-wood, 

And like Stromboli's "fitful fires" glared the battle- 
fray, — as like volcanoes' lava-flood, surg'd their pre- 
cious blood. 

Over crystal-pools of sweet pond-lilies sleeping, hung 
battle-clouds of smoke like loathsome serpents creep- 
ing, 

While o'er the hills encircHng — far down the fleur-de- 
lis of valleys — gentle hearts were breaking, as pray- 
ing souls were weeping. 

For while the cannon boom'd Enfield-rifles roared — 
and swiftly flashing swords in fearless hands were 
wildly gleaming, 

Fondest hearts at home knew well, the sacrificial blood 
of lives they loved supreme, was like the mountain 
torrents streaming. 

"A House divided against itself " That Knight 

of-Grey, and he who wore the Blue, once were brothers 
true, twin'd of one fond Mother, 



VALKYRIA, 17 

But each a separate faith now followed, while devotion 

to his Creed, unsheathed his sword to battle with the 

other ! 
And loyal Legions rallied 'round the gallant Grey, as 

valiant Squadrons marched in bristling ranks about 

the Blue ! 
While each in honor dight — with all their might, fought 

for Liberty, battUng brave — and long — and true ! 

And ever in the deadliest fight, was heard the cry of 
courage — "Strike for home and Freedom! — stand 
by the Stars-and-^<^ri-," 

And all the hills echoed the cry — " Strike for Home 
and Freedom, — die by the flag that floats the sover- 
eign Stripes-?:c\^ Stars ! " 

And while on gory fields of Fallen, they flash'd and 
thunder'd blackest bolts of ball — and blasting blaze 
of lightning's fearful flame — 

(And all the deeds heroic, clad in Blue or Grey, His- 
toric-Truth should write for Centuries to read, upon 
the gilded page of Fame !) — 

Bravely waved the floating Flags of each — for Con- 
quest wrote her proud protest, on each, in turn, as out 
from hill and glade, 

March'd they now with Triumph proud, ensanguin'd all 
the way, (to some lone dale that held Defeat) — from 
many a bloody-banded raid ! 

(Oh, that mournful march that swept them onward to 
the Sea, while in the flare that fired Homes, the 
Knights of Each, fell fast, 



i8 VALKYRIA. 

And Desolation laid her sable pall above our hopes and 
heroes, the while that dread Sirocco past ! • 

Oh, the shrieks sent forth of Grief, o'er the shrouded 

there — of hearts that broke against the anguish of 

those who lovd and help'd the Blue ! 
Or ocean-surge of sorrow that swept o'er Southland and 

left but willows weeping above the graves of those who 

lov'd and helped the Grey so true!) 

From " Mexico to Maryland," — from the then encrim- 
soned flood of rapid Rappahannock's rolling stream, — 

From Potamac's peerless majesty — from all the rivers 
winding on through Southland, to Mobile's placid 
dream. 

From the snows that drift the hills and dales as Arctic- 
ward we wander veiling all the Northland like a bride — 

From " Shenandoah's vale " to " Shiloah's gold'n wave" — 
from Gettysburg, — Manassas, to purplest southern 
seas, roll'd that crimson tide. 

From mountain-rills to rivers — from Pensacola's strand 
of shells and back-land groves of orange to Charles- 
ton's batter'd walls, — 

From palatial homes far Northward — where laughter 
with the sleigh-bells, ring o'er the fields of snow — 
to sunny Southland's lordly halls ! — 

From Mississippi's valleys and levees, — to sweet Sa- 
vannah's Thunder-Bolts and Pulaski-statued-Parks, 
echoes still that wail 

That fire — and smoke — and sulphur, left in heaps of 



VALKYRIA. 19 

ashes, all along the pain-empurpled-path that V\\x 
left in its bloody trail. 

From grand old Lookout's brow, that like a Monarch 
frowns upon the Tennessee's sweet valley — to the 
crown imperial of Kennesaw historic, 

The soil all the way is undulating still with red-clay- 
billows that fortified those Knights who fought for 
Rights, and tell of deeds heroic ! 

(Ay ! from princely mansions on Peachtree and White- 
hall — or cottage- windows vine-wreath'd that zone 
Atlanta's woodland suburbs many a mile. 

We see them now — those same red-waves-of-war, 
winding 'round our queenly Southland City, like Red- 
Sea-waves girdling e'er some lovely orient isle ! — 

From Marietta-street that winds toward the mountains 
— from McDonough's shady sweep that Eastward 
runs of Washington, — 

Their clayey-serpentining winds, — as 'round our arbor- 
vitae hedg'd and marble-sculptured " Oakland " — and 
by the Boulevard that spans to Ponce de Leon ! 

And while those barren ditches gape like death-wounds 

upon our consecrated soil, eloquent of heroism that 

died defending all it lov'd — 
Those tidal-banks the which nor rain — nor tears — 

nor time hath yet wash'd out and level'd, — that urns 

the Blood-of-Braves we all so lov'd — 
Can we — or Friend — or Foe forget that both have 

suftered, — have bled and died in those who died upon 

our hallowed hills : — 



20 



VALKYRIA. 



(. . . . " We cannot all forget 
That there is much even Victory must regret,) " — 

For Georgia-soil's ensanguined with their mingled 
blood — and both are sleeping daisy -starred beneath 
her valley-lilies — beside her mountain-rills. 

But ..." the wind shall be temper'd to the shorn 

lamb." Atlanta — fair Princess of the Royal House, 

has, Phoenix-like, sprang up anew, 
Peerless and imperial from the Ashes-of-her-Roses, and 

with white hospitable hands extends the olive-branch 

of " Peace " unfaltering and true ; — 
Her noble heart is throbbing sweet '* Forgiven'/ — the 

while her royal gold-barr'd Gates all swing wide-open, 

that all who will, may enter, 
And — past the welcome portal, may feast her bursting 

Cornucopia — quafT her amber-wines, and share the 

wealth where all her riches centre ! 

(We grow the Star-of-Bethlehem — sweet flower — that 
blooms for ''Reconciliation/ — and the bloomful Star- 
wart, too, that's ** Welcome to a st range f ; " 

While Creameries, and gold'n hives-of-honey flow, the 
while our Strawberries' ''excellence'' may tested be, 
in crimson Sumach-groves that emblem Southern 
" Splendor!) 

But backward, (how glooms that backward glance ! ) 
through the trying — flying years that roll like reck- 
less Phaeton's burning chariot-wheels of Sun. 



VALKYRIA. 21 

Turn we tristful — truthful e'er to tell — of all those 
years remembered — numbered well, — or Who, the 
Wreath of Victory won ? 

On many a field of carnage — on many a field of fire 
that mingled its hero-blood with volumes of fitful 
flame — 

Black Battle wav'd its banner of blight . . . . ^' on 
the heaps of the holily slain!' .... where Life 
was the price of a fame : — 

Ay — where, vainly, many a costly life poured out its 
precious heart-wine on Freedom's encrimson'd battle- 
shrines, — 

" Sinking in Glory s bright flood!' — to win but a 
wreath amaranthine with cypress-leaves glooming 
where the laurel entwines ! 

Brave heroic hearts, the which no frowning fear could 

quell — nor reigning power deter — while hope in 

wild glances was beaming 
Bright o'er the raging of storm and of strife, where 

Valor buckled on her fresh armor, as the swift sword 

of Honor was gleaming ! — 
Brave Knights of the bold Blue Batallions sweeping 

Southward in their wrath, through the marches of 

many a weary war-day, — 
Brave Knights of the Beautiful Grey who toiled and 

trenched and braved and battled through the glory 

that garland'd their way : — 



22 VALKYRIA. 

" Good knights and true as ever drew 
Their swords with- trusty Roland, 
Or died at Sobieski's side 
For love of martyred Poland, 

" Or knelt with Cromwell's iron-sides, 
Or sang with brave Gustavus ; 
Or on the plains of Austerlitz 
Breathed out their dying Aves." 



With sometimes a Victory proudly-triumphant, " advan- 
cing ! " — or a crownless Defeat beating sorrowful 
"retreat," — 

On — through the wearisome wilds of that Wilder- 
ness OF woe, where armies contending, in deadliest 
conflict were rushing to meet : — 

A-down the , . . . " deep crimson'd valley of Rich- 
mond " . . . . — through the shadowy sighing of 
Seven Pines, (where they lie embalm'd in glory.) — 

While mournful Malvern Hill, Vicksburg, and mangled 
Manassas, with Sumter and Moultrie, are telling their 
war-becrimsoned story ! 

And regretful Gettysburg — with many another fear- 
ful field — where the battling Brothers, pride of the 
North — and the South, 

With god-brows bound with laurels, — like the Spar- 
tans, dead upon their shields, . . . . " lie covered with 
glory at the dread cannon's mouth ! " 



VALKYRIA. 23 

Alas! — "who knows hozv much lies buried there? 

What worlds of love and all that might have been ! " 

... if that dread Molock had not reigned — 
if those brave Knights-of-Riglits had fought in other 

fields of glory — had wrought our country other story — 

or other victories gain'd ! 

But what with wading the weltering waves of Battle's 
Red-Sea, marching — and toiling — fighting, falling 
back — fortifying, — 

Booming — bombarding — and bloodily-battling till des- 
pairful they beheld, all mingl'd and mangl'd, their 
bravest lay fall'n and dying ; — 

'Till desperately — darkly on the grey haggard borders 
of Doom — on the red-ravel'd edges of War — the last 
horrid fight of Four-Years, — 

(With numberless billowy-banks that sepulchred their 
Braves, circled by sad-sobbing seas of fond Woman's 
tears,) 

They met in grand trial of unyielding strength, — both 

armies with ardor unfaltering, contending for Victory ! 

or Death ! 
For the brave-banner'd, hard-struggling, stained Stripes- 

and-Stars ! or the bloody, beloved, battle-scarred Cross 

of the South ! 
The night was long in its watches — (as the fight had 

been fierce in its forces) — but the passionate patriots 

gather'd strength for the morrow ! 
And ..." buckled on fresh sandals for "... their " bloody 



24 VALKYRIA. 

path!^ . . . with prayerful faith and courage that 
dream'd nor fear — defeat — nor sorrow ! 

At last the morning dawn'd — (that morning mournfully 

immortal), with rich Aurora-blush en-flushing all the 

East, as rose the sun above them — 
(And who — that worthily — shall chronicle their glory 

All — or language e'er the anguish that crushed the 

hearts of those who lov'd them ?) 



" Little by little did morning reveal 
Two long glittering lines of steel ; 

"Where two hundred thousand bayonets gleam, 
Tipped with the light of the earliest beam, 
And the faces are sullen and grim to see, 
In the hostile armies of Grant and Lee." 



All day long, relentless, the fearful conflict raged, like a 

Whirlwind-of-Woe passing pitiless over the soul, 
In billowy oceans of anguish that lash'd the brave shores 

of Heroic Life, soul-deep in breakers, the bloody surf 

did roll, — 
As shock after shock thrill'd along the lines, and thun- 

der'd Destruction reap'd solid ranks of thousands who, 

devoted, fell there, 
'Till the roseate hopes of a Nation slowly — but surely 

were sinking, and the yearning lips of love were white 

with the blanch of despair. 



VALKYR I A. 25 

For Death, the Reaper, walk'd stark abroad with flash of 
steel, and flame of fire thatleap'd in lurid lust of Bat- 
tle's maddest mood, 

While peerless Patriotism roll'd its crimson waves of 
War — from red commotion-crested Earth, a-float with 
souls, up to the Throne of God ! 



All day long the rush and roar of War's red Lion leap'd 

from his lair, through sable clouds of smoke that rose 

to heaven's sapphire archway, — 
All day long the dauntlessLeaders of many a fearless 

Rank and File, follow'd each their cherish'd Cause's 

Chieftain, down to decline of day; — : 
Follow'd faithfully the flag they knightly swore to save-- 

and fearless fought for all they lov'd, immerced in blood- 

becrimsoned waves — 
Follow'd faithfully their Grant, — or yet their Lee, their 

Stonewall, or McPherson,— some to glory-garland'd 

— and some to nameless graves !-— 

(Yet it matters not — or Blue — or Grey, they are proud 

America's knightliest, kingliest sons, and therefore, 

" . . . . objects of eternal love " — 
And Glory garlands with her gilded story, as love with 

wreaths of roses, each honor'd Soldier's greeny mound, 

where'er the battle-grounds we rove : — 

*' It recks not where their bodies lie — 
By bloody hill-side, plain, or river — 



26 VALKYR I A. 

Their names are bright on Fame's proud sky, 
Their deeds of valor live for ever." — ) 



Vesper-ward, far down the Western slope of Day, 
slowly sank the sun, a-like a crowned Caesar upon his 
couch of roses — 

While a million Heroes sank to rest beneath the bat- 
tle's lull — deep and dreamless in that dread day, that 
clos'd in hush'd and soft reposes : 

The gallant Grey (outnumber'd — not outdone), true to 
the last, had sheath'd his stainless sword, and high on 
Fame's proud sun-hued height, — 

Through manly tears, that dash'd the light of his darkly- 
flashing eyes, saw, with breaking heart, .... 
" Glory's Southern Sun sink down in night." 

*Twas night upon the battle-field: the tender stars had 

hid behind the cloud-land cliffs that veiled them from 

that scene of woe. 
While Victory, battle-blossomed lifted crimson hands, 

bath'd in brothers' blood, to clasp her bloody wreath, 

in that strange land below : 



Like the leaves of Vallambrosa, 

They are lying ; 
In the moonlight, in the midnight, 

Dead and dying, — " 



VALKYR I A. 27 

Were they, — as that immortal Night beheld the awful 
form of Might, victory-plum'd and borne triumphant 
in banner'd chariot rolling by — 

The wheels in rapid rush hurling dust in the lovely, 
tearful eyes of conquer'd Right, unheeding that 
sweet " Mercy ! " that thrill'd her anguish'd cry ! 



E'en Nature — lovely, pitying Mother of All, veil'd her 
tender, tearful face : her cloud-veil hung a sable pall : 
'Twas night upon the ocean, 

And noble ships were tempest-toss'd and lost beneath 
the bellowing black surges, that rag'd like torment in- 
carnated, in all the billowy commotion ! 

Yet — in lurid flash of lightning, gleam'd the plum'd 
helmet of Victory, perch'd upon the Blue Knight's 
standard floating high from many a hoary rampart 

And banner'd Ocean-Fleet, while the murderous waves 
madly lash'd a sinking Ship — the bold sea-faring 
" Grey," whose Heroes bravest fought the bravest 
part ! 

Ah ! 'twas ever thus, since the first apple roseate 
ripen'd luscious in far Eden, where Adam laid his 
sin upon the fair unyielding shoulders of his Eve — 

Without the manliness that bravely would have own'd — 
" / ate the fruit because 'twas good / " — not — " The 
woman tempted me / " — hoping thereby, his honor to 
retrieve : — 



28 VALKYRIA. 

Alas ! 'twas nearly ever thus, since in the golden harvest- 
fields, that wav'd in ripen'd richness without the wolds 
that wall'd the corner-stone of Time, 

When crimson-handed Cain slew his brother Abel, — 
and after that first one wild draught of red revenge, 
wander'd desolate a-down the lessening shores of 
Time ! 

But — beck'ning backward, glooms that Night upon the 
Ocean, when, like a dying King, heroic sank the 
proud and peerless Ship " Confederate," — 

With prow and pennon fallen, crown and sceptre 
brok'n — sinking calmly to a fate — (to evade the 
which, a million heroes fought them long and 
desperate), — 

As many another — wreck'd on some old rock at sea, 
the gallant " Grey " went down, as the farewell furl 
of her trembling "Cross" was lost in the lashing 
waves. 

Where the Brave were buried — sinking in a sea of 
glory, and sleep immortalized in algae-groves, that 
gloom above their ocean-pearl be-jewel'd graves. 

Wrapt in knightly glory, went they down, bearing still 
their knightly Cross, — lost in the ocean-surge of furi- 
ous Factions that lash'd the shores of its '* Cause," 

(And saintly memories cluster sweetly round their glory- 
gilded story, through all the lengthening years, the 
while we lisp of loves we lost, and tearful pause : — 



VALKYRIA. 29 

" Farewell ! ye high heroic hearts, farewell ! 

Inspired lips shall teach the world, ere long, 
Ye fought to hallow story, and ye fell 
To give a new apocalypse to song !" 



Ay, the bonnie Stars-and-Bars all hung at half-mast ; the 
wistful while the moon had veil'dher facein mourning, 
and no stars were gleaming on the darksome battle- 
ments of night. 

Whose stillness was unbrok'n save by the ocean-waves 
sobbing o'er the Deep that clos'd above the noble Ship, 
in the smoke and storm of that last Battle'd blisfht. 



(But 'twas the stately burial of a Monarch whose great 
heart had beat with the throb of a million souls, and 
the "Blue" — that's true — with those bereft and 
left — 

Pause now, with paid tribute of Patriot unto Patriot, 
the while we write their — Rest in Peace " — upon the 
marble Cenotaph our hearts have rear'd — a shaft the 
gloom hath cleft — 

Beside the lonely rocks that lift their hoary crag-wilds 
like the grey and mossen ruin of some old tumbled ram- 
part, above that Knightly Grave, embalm'd in love and 
tears ; 

But his kingly line — children We, descended nobly of the 
"Grey" — upbear a golden sceptre still, enjewel'd 
with his best bequest of God's " Love one another^' 
through all the fleeting years ; 



30 



VALKYRIA. 



The while forgiving — as we hope to be forgiven, and 
nobly struggle on, as battling still the Right is with 
the Wrong, hoping — faithful, yet to reach the Heights, 

Where enthron'd we'll place our spotless, lov'd, and peer 
less Honor, lunaria-crowft d, beside the Nation's glory- 
sceptred Goddess Liberty no longer veiled with star- 
less battle-nights !) 

'Twas night throughout Columbia : for o'er the Fallen 
(Blue, — or — Grey,) Wife the fondest — with Mother 
true of test — the Friend all fair — or love's beautiful 
Betrothed, — 

America's fair Rachel was weeping for her Dead — alike 
above the slain upon the altars of the Victor and the 
Vanquish'd, — in weeds of anguish cloth'd : 

(Ay ! We have our noble Niobes — North and South — 
stricken dumb with grief, sitting desolate beside the 
silent stones that lift white shafts of glory — 

War's marble-sculptur'd Hist'ry — above thedasied 
sod that urns their sacred dead, the while the world 
shall read for aye, the truth that tells their high heroic 
story.) 

'Twas morning after battle : Radiantly a cloudless morn 
arose — a roseate fragrance-breathing dawn broke 
balmful o'er all — alike above the broken battle-lines 

Of Conqueror and Conquer'd, — a proud, pathetic picture 
— renown'd remnant of Two grand Armies — back- 
ground by a rippling sea of tender foliage and fiower- 
broider'd vines : — 



VALKYRIA. 31 

Appomattox ! Oh, immortal Apple-Tkee ! that tells 
its touching, tristful tale historic to all the Ages sound- 
ing down the lengthening corridors of Time — 

Eloquent of all that filled the life of One who stood with 
glory-garland'd brow all bared beneath thy rosy flush- 
ing, meeting fate infinitely sublime. 

For 'twas the sunny smile of April'tired in her tiara of 
dew-faceted diamonds and xos,Q-damasse robQ, — with 
ripple of silver laughter, and gleam of glad blue eyes, 

When our grand old Chieftain yielded up his stainless 
sword, — and the?iy with magic change, the April 
burst in rain of tears from rifts of cloud that gloom'd 
the sad blue skies : 

Four fitful years of blood and blighted hope — of silver 
clouds, with now a quiver fill'd with arrowy sun-beams, 
that shot their golden lances athwart the cheerless 
gloom — 

And then arose, with distant rumble, the rushing storm, 
that ever broke its gathered fury in fearful flash of 
lightning, blasting all the hopes that late had burst in 
bloom ! — 

Yet all the Springtime flush was bursting out in bloom, 
as though no War had been, and all the land was rosy 
with the fountain-spray of blushing apple-blooms — 

Flush'd with all the fragrant promise of fruitage rare and 
ripe ; — just as when the royal Ruskin (wading soul- 
deep in rev' rent search of all the Beautiful God hides 
in Alpine-glooms,) — 



32 VALKYRIA. 

Stood with brow imperial bared, his soul a-throb with 
ecstasy, and look'd between their rosy-sprays, a-while the 

sun was rising bright above the Vevay-orchard-aisles, 
And saw the " azurn sheen " of Lake Geneva dimpling 

in the distance enchantingly, as though between them 

leap'd no fastastic cascades — orspann'd no measur'd 

miles : — 

(Oh, incomparable Chief ! Our immaculate Lee ! through 
those bloom-full boughs flushed no hues of promise* 
rip'ning into hope's fruition, nor dimpling Lake all 
calm with peace for thee, — 

For thy ".Cause" so sacredly espous'd is dead — its 
cherished banner furl'd, thy great heart broke, when 
thy valiant Hosts were vanquish'd and their Ship went 
down beneath a starless, shoreless sea.) 

An apple-tree, 'tis said, lifted its bloomful banner above 
his noble head, — a fitting ensign — Flag-of Flowers 
a-float for the grand old Hero, who could show the 
listening World, 

How grand a Truth could meet Defeat \ — though his 
" Conquered Banner " — (" Treat it gently, it is holy,") 
— unto the blightsome breeze its fallen stars and cross 
no more should be unfurl'd. 

And though he could not lift our Failure up to the 
Heights he yearn'd to, still an iridescent spell of grand- 
eur through all time shall linger enchantingly around 
our Lee's surrender, 



VALKYRIA. 35 

The while no heart — of friend, or foe, withholds its 
meed of praise for him, and sanctified his brave-pathe- 
tic story, in sweetest rush of mem'ries sad and tender, 



Well might you burst in bloom to weave the flushing 
crown of such a Lee ! a name that gathers fame with 
each golden cycle running — a Hero dead — yet death- 
less, embalm'd in love and glory 1 — 

While the proud, imperial Grant is living, earth and 
earthy, with the dire New Era that dawn'd upon a 
Nation then, — the while a World is reading still his 
strange eventful story : — 

And yet we grant thee glory, Grant, for all that's noble in 
thee, — for the grandeur of that spirit too great to take 
the sword there ojfered tliee in token of Surrender ! — 
a symbol of Defeat ! — 

Too proud a patriot thou ! — too worthily a warrior to 
humble by such usage, a Hero whom — as soldier unto 
soldier — as patriot unto patriot, thou could^but honor 
also, with homages replete ! 

(Where is the sword of Lee ? Hath some mystic Maiden 
of the Lake grasp'd its jewell'd hilt, as did One the 
good and pure King Arthur's fam'd Excalibar "nine 
years wrought" — 

Some enchanted arm . . . . " clothed in white samite^ 
mystic, zvonderful^' risen from the deep, brandish'd it 
three times, and drawn it out of sight swift as subtlety 
of Thought? — 



34 VALKYRIA. 

Doth our grand old white-hair'd Hero — done with earth- 
ly blight and battle-shock, with care and conflict, toil 
and time — rest him in some sweet Valhalla ? — 

" To the island-valley of Avilion : 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea," — 

Where he heals his broken heart with balmful bliss of 
ecstacy eternal, flushed with joy ineffable enclasp'd in 
arms of Love's own Allah? 

Ay ! with Arthur — (Ideal rare of Tennyson transcend- 
ent,) well might he, if need be, waft response to hearts 
that wistfully lament him : — 

(" The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 

And God fulfils himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

Comfort thyself : what comfort is in me ? 

I have lived my life, and that which I have done 

May He within himself make pure ! but thou, 

If thou shouldst never see my face again, 

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 

Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 

For what are men better than sheep or goats 

That nourish a blind life within the brain. 



VALKYRIA. 35 

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.") 

So may his grand redeem'd spirit rest in Paradisean peace, 
the while each vet'ran true that lingers here, may 
something find sufficient to content him! 

Aye ! bow to thy fate thou Beautiful South — none can 
do so more regal than thou ! sheathe thy drawn sword 
so knightly and keen, to be brandish'd no more but in 
Song; — 

A New Era is dawning upon you, with wonderful change 
revolutionizing all save the soul, — So — "unto Cae- 
sar the things that are Caesar's," — you'll learn to sub- 
mit you ere long. 

And while .... "unto God the things that are God's" 
.... you will render, — have faith in the promise of 
an ultimate reward, and He will take care of the rest ! 
Come — dry up your tears on the Grey-tatter'd sleeve : — 

Unto the Inevitable yet you will bow, — as homeward you 
tristfully turn your handsome bronzed visage, with a 
soldier's permit of a permanent "leave." 

•*Peace!" And then from Camp to Court, echoed the 
dread decree — (did Peace decree a dread f) — Aye 
— sometimes beneath her snowy standard, like angel- 
wings outspread in troth of vanquish'd pains, — 



36 VALKYRIA. 

A Spirit-Dire forfeits there his plighted ''foi-de officer ! " 
and fury bursts the flood-gates of pent-up hatred, and 
sorrows surge in persecution of the consecrated cap- 
tives that War hath manacled with chains. 

Famed Fortress Monroe ! consecrated by memorabilia 
of thy rever'd Prisoner-of-State ! They have torn off 
the crown from thy kingly brow, belov'd Sire, and de- 
thron'd though thou be — 

While a Southern soul shall weep above our noble hero- 
graves crown'd with summer-wealth-of-roses, in ev'ry 
Southern heart you'll find . . . . **^ kingdom and a 
home^' loyal still to thee ! — 

While just History shall chronicle the glory Thine, and 
Theirs who died, as far a-down the flght of Time e'en 
the Conqueror shall tell the truth sublime — (heroic 
story), 

That nerved each Southern hand and thrilled each South- 
ern heart, the wistful while the Poet's sigh and song 
shall weave in silk'n web the cloth-of-gold that broiders 
all the woof of thy unfading glory ! 

And while we cherish Davis, there are those whose 
loyal hearts are thrilling still with memories sweet as 
nodding recemes of the valley's irdLgr^xitfancy-liricon, — 

Tender-throbbing thoughts that cluster like rare chaliced 
spiceries around the sacred mem'ry — name renown'd 
— and sad untimely fate of one whom men called 
Lincoln ! 



VALKYRIA. 37 

(Oh ! Beloved Southland ! even in thy defeat, when they 
have torn the bright laurels from thy beautiful brow, 
— through duty — through homage — through love 
that's undying, and a royal birthright, I am thine ! — 

And thine too, oh, proud Northland ! (thou true North 
averse to all tyranny), — thine in all that promotes our 
Union's perfection — the Union as our Fathers, patriot- 
hearted and souled-divine, 

Who founded it — devoutly declared it should be, — bat- 
tle wrought and blood-sealed, its rights sacred and 
supreme, — a Sovereignty born of crimson-sworded, 
flame-eyed Revolution, 

And in their Declaration that bequeathed us Indepen- 
dence, wassoul'd a Nation's glory, whose laurels flourish 
only as .... " divinely wrestling for the triumph of 
the True . ..." we falter not in Constitutional de- 
votion !) 

" Dead upon the field of glory ! " — The Ashbys, Jackson, 
Zollicoffer, Johnston, Polk, and Stuart, — Cleburne, 
Bartow, Morgan, Price, and Lee ! whose fadeless 
wreaths of glory twine amaranthine blooms all with 
our " Many Nameless." 

(" Who mined and trenched and marched and toiled 
with ardor unabated, 

And swept across the dattle-^dds like whirlwinds incar- 
nated ; 

Whose grand impersonal renown adds to their country's 
glory, 



38 VALKYR I A. 

But gives them not one line in song, and not one page in 
story."—) 

Yet all who fell — or Blue, or Grey — believing what 
they died hr right, — (the soldiers sacred credo — for 
what greater love hath patriot, than he that lays his 
life upon his country's altars ?) — we crown them with 
the Many Blameless ! 

Val-kyr-i-a ! (crowds of slain), alas ! ^?/r crowds of bravest 
hero-slain, whom the beautiful but awful Valkyria . . . 
" marked with their spear-point when the hour of death 
had come ! " 

Above the glory-garland'd graves of These, the Greys 
bereav'd — through all the years — shall come in tears 
to lay with immemorial love sweet votive flowers of 
rarest bloom : — 

While for the Blues' beloved McPherson, and all their 
Braves and Loves, who fell upon the same proud field 
of glory, we would twine a garland fair-of-fame that no 
brother go uncrowned ! — 

Have They not gone with Us to pay the .... "largesse 
of their praise ..." in tender tribute to " Our Dead .?" — 
thus would we go with Them also to Arlington (or 
Theirs, or Ours T) — renown'd, 

With ....** homage true and tender. 

As soldier unto soldier's worth, — 
As brave to brave will render." 

Sleep well thou love-embalm'd Immortal Dead — belov'd 
of Blue or Grey, — while sacred memories cluster 
like white roses around each "Cause" for which you 
separate battled hard : — 



VALKYRIA. 



39- 



Ova et labora ! <?//rnoble motto be — (" Fideli certa mer- 
ceSy") for prayerful work that's sanctified by faith, is 
sure at last, of none but just and full reward. 

That Knight-of-Grey fell devotedly defending the Gates 
that opened on Atlanta, and they laid him down to 
rest — the warrior's last sleep — like a Prince in state 
wound in his royal battle-flag ; — 

And the Knight who wore the Blue was true, and 
yielded up both life and love — a sacred holocaust^ 
beside a Battery that belched death and desolation at 
famed and far-off Gettysburg. 

That Southern home the Grey Knight left, in grand but 
sadden'd beauty, lies a desolated heap of ashes-of-the 
roses, while a wandering trail of ivy winds lovingly 
around a gnarl'd and shiver'd oak. 

As if to twine S monarch's crown in lieu of the oak'n 
splendor lost, and with caressing fond and tender, 
bring back the forest-life that faded when its brave 
old heart had broke ; — 

Bare and cheerless chimneys stand within the tumbled 
walls, like grim sentinels that guard the sacred spot 
where that lordly home had stood — as all the still- 
ness of the place is hush'd a-like the sacredness of 
prayer, 

The while, beneath the shade pathetic of swaying weep- 
ing-willows, a straggling clump of lilies lift their pure 
white faces — white as though the thought of some 
sweet sad Past had blanched them with despair. 



40 VALKYR I A. 

Some tenacions fruits still golden, and some to crim- 
son turn, a-down the gloomful orchard-aisles, ripen'd 
into richness for birdlings that sometimes wing their 
flashing flight that way. 

But the silence no echo now sends back — no mirth, nor 
music, at the board, or hearthstone, — no greeting 
there of gladness at yule-tide, birth, or bridal anni- 
versary. 

While the orphan'd and the widow'd, brok'n-hearted and 
homeless — (born of Bounty, cradl'd silk'n-swaddled 
at the Court, and, wedded unto Love, had liv'd with 
Luxury — ) now battle with a hard New-Era, unlov'd, 
unhonor'd, sad, and songless ; 

Strange inJieritance of Honor ! — broken fortunes, 
buried kindred, blighted dreams, and bruised spirits, 
with none to lisp " I love!' as darker glooms the way, 
and Hope affrighted flees them, in^contest with Le 
Diable the Soulless ! 



That Northland Home, that rear'd palatial walls beside 
the royal-rolling Hudson, where the roses dew-be- 
spangled and June-burn'd into crimson had perfum'd 
the olden days of love and peace, 

When its marble halls had echoed the thrills of joy that 
burst the soul of song, where melody awoke 'mid ele- 
gance exquisite as sculptures that adorn'd the Classic 
Age of Greece. 



VALKYR/ A. 41 

The courtly master-of-the-manor — on far-off fields of 
carnage, fighting for a crown of glory he could not live 
to wear, — the queen of love, that long had reign'd 
there, found no joy now in all that regal splendor, — 

For the morning's roseate rising, the glory of the noon- 
tide, soft twilight with its tender touches, or night 
with starry crown and sceptre, nothing could suffice 
or render 

For the loss of life's rare charm that love had wrought 
between the two, for the glory that no earthly fame 
could balance — the priceless crown that unaffected 
affinity creates. 

Festooning all the palace with full-expanded florals of 
hue and fragrance fadeless, the while it gladdens, with 
infinite thrills of joy, the soul of all its happy inmates : 

'* and his home, that fain would be 

Childhood's gayest haunt, grew weary — tired of its 

dumb misery. 
Sad and desolate, as pining for the touch of loving 

hands. 
Soft words and murmurs floating from the joy of 

happy bands ; 
And its terraces grew wilder, and Decay smote on 

its tow'rs, 
And weed and bramble rudely pierced the timid 

hearts of flowers. 
Here life slumbered dreaming, dreaming 
Of a distant morrow gleaming ; " 



42 VALKYR I A. 

'Till at last the spell was brok'n — the silence long un- 
brok'n save by murmur of the slow sad river, and 
fountains falling soft against the canna-thickets and 
Caladium-leaves, 

Awoke at sudden touch of strange sweet witcheries that 
thrilled the thousand hidden harps so late in sadness 
hush'd, where the sweet dicentra, the grouping ana- 
gallis cleaves : — 

Like a " Sleeping Palace " — a Prince had come to break 
the weird charm that wove its muteful myst'ries all 
about the place, from royal hall and chamber, up to 
dove-deserted tower, — 

A magic touch of wonder-working-wealth ! a kiss of joy 
sweet as love's own lips could make it ! and the silence 
leapt again to life in beauty's matchless power. 

Its. marble columns brok'n and statues fallen prone among 
the long, cool grasses, are by hands of wealth uplifted 
upon their proud pedestals, gleaming white against the 
rose-and-amber fires that burn within the west ; 

The while each golden hour is telling tales of love and 
hope's fulfilment within two souls but lately wed, as 
each dawn enflushed with joy, or noon with open 
splendor, wooes them to the twilight's fragrant rest: 

Bliss, Melody, and Peace are blending all their rarest — 
for Love hath wooed, and won, and brought a Bride 
there, orange-crown'd and Cupid-sceptred — and from 
the soul's veil'd altars, clouds of holy incense rise, 

Distilling all' the sweets of life, — (ah ! how the fond en- 
chanted v^isioii brings back the brok'n bliss of past 
Milleniums that others, zvedded, lived there !\ in this 
sweet home — their Paradise ! 



VALKYR I A 43 

For, alas ! the lightsome laughter that ripples through 
its halls, with songs that tell of joy, are songs that 
strangers sing : while she whose heart had broke in 
grief for Gettysburg, lies asleep beneath that tristing 
Linden-Tree by the rolling silver river. 

Through all the nights of starry glory — (full of love''s 
sweet story as when they parted there with hope of 
swift reunion,) — while the lilies ope their fragrant 
hearts above her, and soft with dewy tears the silver 
aspens quiver. 



Tristesse! (Sweet Tim rod's harp lies mute and unstrung 
by the sapphire walls of glory, but the deathless songs 
his spirit' woke shall forever thrill divinely the sweetest, 
tenderest Lyre of Time, — 

With Barrick'sintoglit:ering fragments broken, and won- 
drous Warfield's peerless and transcendent — thrilling 
to Eternity ! — all asleep with those grand heroes whose 
daringdeedsof valor, their matchless touch hath woven 
into songs sublime ! ) 

Tristesse ! ! yet still true and through all time, to thee. 
our dear and sainted, Dead we'll be true, — we'll fight 
on for Right, and the world shall yet see the star of 
our glory ascendant ; 

Whate'er betide, — in the truth, the honor, the fade- 
less fidelity that clings so divinely about us in our deep 
desolation. — shall be read the record where Fame 
press'd her lips to the wounds of a Nation whose soul is 
transcendent ! 



44 VALKYRIA. 

(Doomful desolation ! — as we sit in the ashes of our 
proud ancestral homes — in the smoke of the altars 
that burn'd with the sacrificial slain, and hung a cloud- 
pall 'bove the hills of our Zion all day;) 

Yet the roses shall blossom again, and twine their blush 
and their fragrance, perfuming the hushes that shall 
waken to softest cadences, where the lurid flames 
hungrily leap'd and the life-blood flow'd warmly away. 

The World wide-eyed shall see! In our halls of State, 
on the Forum, through the Press, and the Pulpit ; 
in the wealth exhaustless that Toil and Science shall 
exhume from the mountain-beds and valley-mines of 
our incomparable clime ! — 

In the Majesty of Right! in the Dignity of Endeavor! 
in the Glory of our Genius ! in the Triumph of the 
True, — Time shall tell unto the Last of Earth the 
tritely-tender tale of a Race who liv'd and died sublime ! 

And at last — like our royal Requier's dream of his coun- 
try's faultless future, that vision'd to his wistful soul 
his infinite " Hymn to the Dawn," — that dawn e'en 
now is breaking in roseate flush of Aurora-splendor, 

Gilding all our land with a glory most resplendent, and 
all his poetic-spirit so sweetly, so supremely dreamed 
of then, has burst from Prison sombre and Subjuga- 
tion sad, into hope's rare fruition, loveliest and ten- 
der!— 

" • • • from the depths of its fountains of blue, 
Such a blaze of bewildering light. 
As the Legends of Araby never yet drew 
From the stars of traditional light. — 



VALKYR T A. 45 



•* Purple acres of grape and savannahs of snow, 
Full of streams that enrichingly run 

Through the fairest of blooms which the tropics be- 
stow 
On the flowery isles of the Sun. 

" Noble structures of Commerce and niches of Art, 
Stately temples and towers between, 

Fretted domes soaring up from the dust of the mart, 
Where the wonders of Science are seen. " 

TRISTESSE ! ! ! Yet the waste places shall be built 
into Cities imperial, walled about with bulwarks of 
Strength, and Gardens of Eden shall blossom super- 
nal, where lately the Desert hath drain'd the last tear- 
drop of dew ; 

And Joy shall christen the Crushed — the Disconsolate, 
Comfort shall crown, — while baptismally and bridally 
chime the sweet bells pealing their gladness to hearts 
that throb happy and true ! 

" Oh, I see the long stretch of thy sorrowing years, 
Clime of Cedars ! transformed in my sight, 

From the comfortless drops of thine anguishing tears 
Into dews of maternal delight." 

Tfisiesse ! Tristesse ! Our one sin and error then was 
leaving thee, sweet Union! recklessly and passionately 
tearing all from thy protecting arms of tenderness, 
oh ! thou loved and consecrated Constitution ! 



46 VALKYR] A. 

O ! saintly shades of Washington and all thy grand Com- 
patriots ! in pity pardon yield us, that we, faithful and 
unyielding, did not cling to thy rich bequest with more 
than patriot's devotion ! 

Oh ! divine-souled sovereign, benign Mother receive us 
in thy loving arms so all-enclasping ! We, thy repent- 
ant, returning Prodigal-children, who, though sinning, 
have erred not of the heart — 

Take us back to thy heart and thy house beloved mater, 
— heirs and joint-heirs with thy first-born ? — we'll be 
true, we'll be loyal, and love thee as only the penitent 
can love, and nothing shall cleave us apart ! 

We come : We come to the Feast ! we come into the 
wonderful Temple that patriotic time has dedicated 
unto thee ! We have made our sacrifices : we have 
offered our peace-offerings to thee, — 

As Sheba the lovely, to Solomon came, bearing weight 
of such treasure as only such royalty bears, in trib- 
ute to the crown'd, so come we, bearing gold'n vessels 
of all we are — or have — or hope ever to be ! 

With allegiance faithfully renewed — with unfaltering 
faith, that plights the fond troth — if to battle we mtist, 
then forever we II do battle with thee, and for tJue I 

For only with thee we are sovereign ! Crown, and throne, 
and sceptre thou, and none shall dare gainsay us ' 
** Beautiful . . . as Tirzah, .... " oh, thou 
supreme in power ! predominant, all-protecting, pavise 
shield of Liberty ! 

" Under the imperial aegis" . . . . of the Consti- 
tution, we shall do valiantly! So, swift let sail 



VALKYR I A. 47 

the love-decked yacht of Uniox, from Ocean unto 
Ocean, from Mexico to Maine ! 

Wash off the war-paint a la Sioux, — Magnoha Balm 
is better ; Sioux despoil the Eagle s crests — and 
bury deep and out of sight forever, the Sectional 
Hatchet that splits the Nation's Heads in twain. 

Remember the apple so fatally ripen'd in Eden, and 
that other all golden'd for discord, and which bore the 
inscription, " For the fairest'' and thrown into an 
assembly of gods to incense them. 

Then let us cling to a " Paradise regained," and see 
that no Eris of discord hurls apples of hate in assem- 
blies of the brave, the great, and the free, that Jus- 
tice and Power come not with reward to compense 
them. 

And we shall win us again the glory of the times that 
were — the olive-branch of peace that swayed from 
Revolution to War-between-the-States — that stately 
ship that sail'd from Shore to Shore of Liberty ! — 

And ours the dearest, bravest, brightest land of all, 
whose glory shines the fairest and the freest, wherein 
nor bud, nor bloom, nor fruit, matures the venom of 
any dissonant and poisonous Ata. 

("Fairies use flowers for their charactery.") So — 
the Broken Straw that emblems all dissension, 
Fanatics hold forever there to keep the Union's brok'n 
chain from clasping links-of-love, — 

To wind its golden cable round the Roman-fluted Pil- 
lar Constitution, and cast our jewelled anchor in the 
Happy-Havens of Prosperity and Peace and Love ! 



48 VALKYRIA. 

But then some baneful Brambles will wind their briery 
tangles of envy's upas-breathing thorns to prick the 
sweet Peruvian-Heliotropes and Blue-belled- 
Hyacinths that live their constancy ! 

Alas ! that our proud Republic, blood-born of red-robed 
Revolution and christen'd proudly, with a Washing- 
ton for sponsor, should, after one golden-cycled Cen- 
tury, 

Find upon her Satin-flower soil, sodded with sincerity, 
a rabid crop of Hellebores that whisper scandal of 
their neighbors, who hold across the greeny mounds 
that urn their lov'd and lost, the Olive-Branch they 
take, 

With estigeres of Ambrosia's love-returned. But Judas- 
trees are ever growing somewhere within the palace- 
walls, beneath whose nightshade-shadow no sweet Yar- 
row blooms a cnre for heartache ; — 

Nor the Moonwort of forgetftilness, or Phlox that 
whispers sweetly ''our souls are united!'' but Auri- 
cular, avance-hQ3.rted, sows all the sod beneath the 
Judas-tree, 

While wild Fraxinella ^ingsjire (sectional flambeaux) 
flaming all our Passion-flower hearts, the while the 
Frit ILL ARIA, solid-flank'd, pursues us still with per- 
secution ; — and we fain would flee 

The baser-hearted Wild-Belvidere, who cries out ever, 
'' I declare against you I " while all his clan is twining 
York-and-Lancaster-roses — bloody-petalled blooms 
of War!'' 



VALKYRIA. 49 

To fire and wreathe in flame, the peaceful olive-vales 
that smile with happy homes, and burn to scraggy 
stubble all the mrytle-glades that waft their fragrant 
loves, sweetly, near and far. 

Yet we labor still with faith, while our ALMOND-branches 
and HAWTHORN-sprays all blossom white and rosily 
with fragrant flowers of Jiope, — and a spirit sweet is 
sighing through all our HAZEL-dells, 

That whispers of a Reconciliatio7t sv/eet at last, when 

. we shall know — and understand — and love each 
other as we should, — and Love shall light the 
home — while Peace and Plenty spreads the board 
where Blue and Grey together dwell. 

The two imperial sections — the snow-crowned, granite- 
pillar'd North, — and passion-flower, myrtle-souled 
South, — each have their Fringed-Gentians of in- 
trinsic worthy their Good and Great Ones innate — 

Their incorruptible Cedars-of-Lebanon, who flourish 
unfading, and steadfastly festooning our Pillars of 
State, as their clust'ring Stars are shining Constella- 
tions of our Senate ! 

While fairer hands are twining wreaths oi friendship's 
Rose-Acacia — that ''Burns with one love, with one 
resentment glows" — among our Laurels a r Anieri- 
caine, to lay as tribute of honor — (in splendid Tyrian 
stains all mix'd), — 

Or woven meed of love, upon our altars inwrought of 
National Patriotism. For the fragrant Honeysuckle 
— ''bond of love!' that so deeply rooted in the crim- 
son soil of our first patriot '76, 



50 



VALKYRIA. 



And blossomed beautiful for many a sunny cycle, must 
be nurtured still into perennial bloom of love fraternal. 
And while Northern Nasturtium twines its patriot- 
ism pure 

With the candid Coltsfoot that plights the faith of 
''yiLstice shall be done you^' and holds the Golden- 
rod ''ejicoiiragemenf for our willing hands to grasp: 
our own Live-oaks shall lisp of "Liberty!" 

And tufts of Mystletoe clinging to their branches, 
will whisper ever "/ stirmotint all difficulties^' and 
peerless Ipomceas will joyously smile ^'-I attach myself 
to thee!'' 

And while our Lilies-of-the-valley shall bring " re- 
turn of happiness to all; those who dwell in white 
Magnolia-groves shall plight you '' persevu'cnce!' as 
we clasp warm hands of love, 

And together journey '' proud and peerless,'' beneath the 
floating Stars-and-Stripes ! Yea! for, ''sub hoc signo 
vinces I " yet, remember, Brothers, as onward, upward 
we shall move. 



" The surest weapon is not gun or sabre, 

Cannon, nor rifle, when for truth zve fight, 

A few fit words surpass the idiot's jabber, 

Tongue, pen, and press, are potent for the right** 



" A cader va chi troppo alto sale!" — (Who climbs too 
high goes to fall,) — and great is that fall ; ay ! inor- 



VALKYRIA. 51 

dinate Ambition will venture too far, and Avarice 
knoweth no bounds ; 

Better live humble and honest ; the shepherd's day- 
dreams are delicious and pure as the daisies — the 
reaper culls lilies oi poesie too with his sheaflets ail 
garner'd for granaries golden that covets no crowns ! 

Too true it, Alas ! We cannot deny it — incongruously 
mix'd with our rare incoercible and incorruptible 
FEW, lamentably we've .... "frauds in high 
places, official deceit," 

Defiling our Places of Power — usurping the Throne of 
the True, with an atimy aspic in venom — with naught 
to commend them but " cheek " and chicanery com- 
plete ! 

While Legislation ebbs and flows beneath the Dome of 
Washington, and in agitated circles audient, spreads 
from shore to shore, its troubled waters circling all 
our semi-tropic Bay-begirdled strand a-tiding, 

Or lash the crag-wilds frowning down our sunny streams 
that wind their Yang-Lang laden banks by imperial 
inland cities that lift their spires proudly heavenward, 
— and through the lines dividing, 

Backward sweeps that rushing tide to the Land of Lakes 
where Chicago, Crown Princess of the West, — across 
the long blue sweep of mountains, on through queen- 
ly cities, cooler hamlets, plain, 

And regal streams that roll like the triumphal chariot of a 
monarch, by pale-hued hills that nestle 'neath colder, 
calmer skies than ours, and tell their limpid rising 
from the granite cliffs of Maine. 



52 VALKYRIA. 

Factions ferment on the Forum : " Rings " are ruble- 
wrought within a Ring — ("Uncle Sam" the mono- 
gram) Rings that plight their troth upon the mystic 
finger of Cliques Political, 

Who — when tried in the alembic of Truth — these 
pseudo-volcanic legislators, Jlame-^miXmg and much 
smoke, but no lava^ — are wanting the beautiful " I am" 
that proves the YdXxioX. pure and analytical. — 

For seldom now, " those regal souls we meet, 

Who kept their honor tho' the \a orld had rocked beneath 

their feet. 
With that clear dignity that shone no clearer for renown, 
Jhat matchless majesty that won, but ibotdd not wear a 

crown. 

** The massive brow ! the kingly hand ! the proud and 

stalwart form, 
That stood as beacons in the night, as bulwarks in the 

storm ! 
How few and far in glory s slope, their less ning numbers 

stand ! 
The pillars of a people's hope ! The Titans of a land ! 

** Now ! when decends the sullen night, our country's 

darkest hour, 
WhenDemagogue and Parasite defile the seats of power, 
When dust is on the Eagle's crest and stain on stripe 

and star. 

Whose limbs shall fill their robes in peace, or lift their 

swords in war ? " 



VALKYRTA, S3 

Ay ! WHO shall fill the Highest Seat within the People's 
gifts ? Will you crown ..." Imperial anarchs dou- 
bling human woes," . . . a " Sectionalist, ivith dis- 
union tendencies V — 

Or a man — a statesman and a patriot born, with spot- 
less record growing retrospective brighter the while 
" Campaign " researches unfolds its hidden glory, and 
with the backward sweep of years, brings but proud 
remembrances ! — 

A noble . . . "Nationalist" ... in every sense that 
sweeping term enfolds, — with soul enamored only 
with the love of a noble nation — a heart that pulses 
pure and impassioned for his country's good and 
glory, — 

A heart whose loyal, proud, pure blood has dash'd its 
crimson spray through honor'd generations of a patriot 
ancestry, who for Independence a faithful sponsor 
stood ! (the world has read their story.) 

He could no more the traitor prove than rose-winged 
zephyrs the morning-star could move, and with this 
unbotight Incorruptible to fill our Chair-of-State, a 
Nation then might quaff the wine of joy from foaming 
.... " Bowls of frosted argentry." 

Then send yoMX psephism with faithful precision — throw 
y^^wx pebble with power for good, deep in the agitated 
political pool, — or yet your proudly boasted ballot in 
the sovereign box, a-voting, — 

''For sons are we of a courtly race, and bound by a 
knightly vow ! "... to plight our faiths and all our 



54 VALKYRIA. 

hopes and loves as One united free and fearless, and 
our fortunes — fame — and fervor forever patriotly 
devoting ! 

Happy Times ere long may joyous spring to meet us, 
radiant as a cloudless morn when all the sky is blue 
with June, and all the earth is roseate with the 
fragrant mystical of bloom, — 

Glad as when a maiden dreams the vision'd beautiful 
that breaks upon her spotless soul in all the prism'ic 
hues of promise ; while young, trustful love whispers 
her approaching nuptials in all their bridal glume : — 

But a tearful time it was — (and years so fraught with 
pain and sadness, joy or gladness, have drifted by since 
then) — when all was dark as when it rains all night 
out of a day of thunder, — 

And sad as when we've buried our heart's most holy 
one — and all life's love and light — and hope 
lies cold out there with them, — and they bring us 
home to live without them, — when a Nation, rent 
asunder. 

Drifted out into a shoreless future, uncertain and 
treacherous as the ocean when it slumbers calmest, 
as if to gather strength to meet the fearful Storm- 
King, whose throne 's the lightning's flash ; 

And the grand old Ship-of-State hard-sea-faring, floated 
through the darksome desolation, rudderless, and with- 
out compass — with its freight of souls, who on some 
port of peace might chance — or on the wreckfull 
rocks their destinies might dash ! 



VALKYFTA. 55 

When that Night deep-shadow'd in Defeat, clos'd down 
upon fair Southland, and all the aspens trembl'd their 
lamentations mutely, while the flags all droop' d at 
half-mast, as if for stately fun'ral affecting ; 

While no star of hope glimmered with its glow of 
promise through the prison-walls of famed old For- 
tress Monroe, then — from the broken Court-of-the- 
Conquered — (Alhambra in ruins !) fled a Courtier- 
of-Congress to foreign lands protecting : — 

Ay, a mighty Son of the Subjugated South, a bril- 
liant light, or lofty pillar of the once so proud 
Confederate Court, fled from the reigning Powers, — 
for loss of libey ty to him meant death I or death in 
life ! 

An Imperial City — far over the blue sweep of turbu- 
lent seas — beyond the white clifls of Dover, opened 
her royal palace-gates to yield him that home his own 
country denied him in her strife. 

But the whole round Earth — journey where you will — 
from life's blushing Eden-of-birth to the close of its 
cross-crown'd Calvary, — hath test of the soul in many 
a rich field of endeavor ; 

And we have only to touch the mainsprings of Right, 
to garner the glory of triumph ! as we've but to be 
brave in crushing the Wrong, to encircle our brows 
with the kingliest of crowns, as hopeful we glide 
a-down the swift tide, to that radiant, far-off For- 
ever ! 

So — on the bright shores of far Albion fair, our Knight 
in his exile, found that roses bloom not without 



56 VALKYRIA. 

thorns, even there — that battle for brave hands to do 
awaited his coming — great wrongs for the daring to 
undo, and a royalty rare to enthrone ! — 

Strong barriers to break down, ere he won a new crown, 
ramparts of strength grown hoar with the passing 
of time, and inequitable customs that centuries of 
pursuance hath conventionally grown. 

Swiftly-going, impress-leaving, yearning years — with 
their freight of treasure (left or lost, else retain' d at 
costly cost), and tears that told of joy supreme, or 
sadness oft times that fathom'd the depths of de- 
spair, — 

Have swept their swinging cycles winged and swiftly 
by, since the courtly coronation of Honora {honor 
or ho?iorable)y that made her the queenliest of 
queens, — a Princess of the Royal House, so peer- 
less and fair ! 

But treacherous Fortune was driving her tinselled 
chariot, with grim Destiny pushing at the wheels, — 
for heads that wear Crowns, perforce oft are aching — 
and there is no safety attending the Throne ! 

As there is no telling what Commotion will crush — 
Revolution may ruin — Revolt enrampant dethrone, 
or Conspiracy blight the fairest fleur-de-lis of royalty 
blown. 

For great Justin — (Justice or the Just), — Honora's 
imperial father had mysteriously died, and as Crime 
ever ready to don royal robes and, pharisaical, sit in 
high places, — 

(Sit in judgment on the means, the works, and the 



VALKYR I A. 



57 



motives of others, — of the pure — the innocent — the 
upright and good ; — concealing self-guilt under pale 
complaisant faces. — ) 

So — Avarice audacious and brimful of " Chic, " aided 
the Pretender, Rowland — (or Council of the land), 
to usurp the proud throne of imperial Honor when 
Justice was dead : — 

And Pcariot-like, to pocket the fatal thirty pieces of sil- 
ver that betrayed a Redeemer, — and rule with aus- 
terity the Realm, e'er ready to betray with a kiss, 
while those who adhered to the Crown, in dismay and 
terror had fled ! 

But there's ever a Redeemer awaiting with power, some- 
where to right every wrong — and while the . . . . 
"mills of the gods grind slowly," . . . how painfully 
slow to all the mute Watchers and Waiters, no singer 
can tell — 

And yet t J Ley grind surely : (for though the stately ^^^z/^ is 
long in maturing its beauty, still it blossometh once 
in a Century I J — and though the long suff 'ring and 
forsak'n despair, yet God's time cometh when all will 
be well. 

o — for Honora the lovely discrown'd, arose a great 
Champion, who — brave as the . . . '* noble six hun- 
dred,". . .fought Hke a charmed Crusader for her king- 
dom and crown. — (^how fearless the hand that nn- 
sheatJi d so stainless a sword, for szich an immaculate 
Queen ! ) 
For this hussar-engagement was not the sabre-cleft bil- 
lowing of sacrificial blood gushing warm from high 



58 VALKYRIA. 

heroic hearts, — nor the bursting of material bombs, 
and all that War's horrors have been ! 

But the hardest-fought, dearest-bought battles are e'er 
the dread Waterloos won on the glorious field where 
the Soul's in command, — and the Marathons mental 
— where the Bozzaris of a courageous spirit dares to 
hurl- its keen sabre unerring at Custom; — 

Cutting down some vile Murat with his blood-begemmed 
crown and ruin-reeking sceptre, — and slaying all Evils 
in his path, deliver a people from a ty ran t-of-t error that 
for Ages had curst them, — 

While he decreed of a Nation's Lov'd — Proudest — and 
Purest — '* Aha ! they die to-day ! bring them praying 
like the Martyrs from their pestiferous prisons where 
I chain'd them ! I would have an old Roman arena, 
that torn they might be and devour'd by the Lions of 
Hell ! — 

But then the old Doges of patrician Venice did the busi- 
ness ' brown,' — so — by the Infernal ! blindfold these 
simpering saints — bring them bound through this 
other Bridge of Sighs — let them down in the death- 
depths below blacker than Dante's 'Inferno! — that'll 
answer quite as well ! " 

But the spirit transcendent of tender-soul'd truth leap'd 
forth from the Champion's soul, swift as the flight of 
arch-angels on missions divine, — declaring the resur- 
rection of Justice at hand, — 

Forth it leapt from out the Dantean-darkness, crying 
with a voice of power — "Nay, but thoti shall sink 
with the sinking of the sun, down to the doom that 
awaits the Oppressor of a royal line and their land ! " — 



VALKYR] A. 59 

And a-while holy insense of unceasing prayer arose like 
the perfumes that diffuseth the Holy of Holies of the 
Temple, far 'bove the surging of the crowd — and the 
smoke of the sacrifices, rang out that decree — " This 
day shalt Thou die ! ' ' 

And cleaving the silence that foUow'd, flashed the gleam 
of a glaive — swift and unerring the blow that sever'd 
the heart of their foe, — flashing between God's Inno- 
cently Condemn'd and the woe of their anguishing cry. 

'Twas a perilous undertaking — this courageous attempt 
to do battle combatting the Strong who held supreme 
sway from sea-board to centre — a mighty realm 
through, — 

" To rise above modes and the hard fettered hour 

Which society's rules and conventions have wrought, 
To trammel the free life and deaden high thought ! " 

But he faltered not — nor fear'd he the scornmg of Sin, 
or of Crime her contempt, — for his courage was great 

— as his cause was most grand, — his prowess unpar- 
allel'd — as masterful and matchless his will, and he 
won the grand triumph of the true ! 

With that high heroic motto inwrought upon his shield 

— ''Plato is my friend, Socrates is my friend, diit 
Truth is more my frieitd!' — he battled brave and 
hard — 

As all undismay'd he cleft the Coronet of Crime, with 
the 7iil desperandum of the dauntless — and wearing 
his honors with the grace that mantles the great, he 
claims the crown of a priceless reward! 



6o VALKYR I A. 

Proud victory won ! Honor restor'd to her Throne ! and 
high on the ramparts, pinnacle, and turret of town, 
floats the Imperial flag, (the blue Lions of Britain 
protecting,) 

While it flutters unfurling to the breeze of a popular ap- 
plause, the proud name unsullied of Honor's Hercules 
— thrilling to lands encircling the seas, with a mes- 
meric sweetness ineffably affecting ! 

Would you learn of that fame-letter'd name? his line- 
age lordly may be trac'd from the princely house of 
JuDAH, {praised) with the purity of the powerful P. — 
a grace-note intitial inwrought for this boundless brave 
Benjamin, {son of the right?) 

And while of his prowess you are lavish of praise — and 
twining my Chaplets-of-Mars 'round Names all enjew- 
ell'd with stars, — read a-right — and be sure to place 
on the Height the proud one of our own and fair 
Honor's true Knight I 

Backward — athwart the grey sweep of centuries that 
• have plied the patina of ages on Time's chisell'd 
works, — fancy Eastward flies o'er the sacred hills of 
Galilee, — 

On — by the fair Vale of Elah, and lovely Idumea, — 
far on to Hebron or el-Khulil, — to Mount Carmel,and 
Cedron or bonnie brook Kidron that wanders to the 
sea ; — 

Then up — mounting higher to the grand Hills of Zion, 
over the tower'd walls of the City-of-the-Eternal where 
clouds of incense hung, — to the glory then crowning 
this royal Judah's house like a Bethlehemean star: — 



VALKYRIA. 61 

(For . ..." it is said that when God entered into cove- 
nant with the Jewish nation, he placed a beautiful 
crown upon their head," ) — a crown that no touches 
of time can utterly tarnish or mar ! 

(A City so great in its time — must even be grand in 
its ruins ! for no centuries of desolation, nor crum- 
bling of stone or of wall can overshadow the glory that 
shone there I — 

For the ivies, and lichens, and mosses so tenderly 
mantling those magnificent ruins, are eloquent ever of 
the Living Redeemer who lov'd, wept over, heal'd, 
and forgave, — and walked with them there ! 

And the memories so sacredly sad — as so sacredly 
sweet, — that hallows the place, and halloes Jerusalem 
with a glory celestial, does not, never did, nor ever 
can crown other Earthly City ; 

And the highest and holiest thoughts that can thrill a 
Christian heart, turns ever devoutly to linger around 
its everlasting hills ! — its overthrown Temple 1 1 — its 
transcendent Gethsemane ! ! ! — 

Its matchless Mount-of-Olives I its agonizing Golgotha! ! 
its Holy Sepulchre! ! ! — all the glory-pav'd paths that 
led outward through its suburban ravines — and up the 
winding mountain-ways ! — 

Over to the blessed and beautiful Bethany, — and that 
love-anointed, consecrated spot where a Saviour last 
impress'd the earth with flaming feet of Light when 
the Everlasting Gates swung open to receive Him that 
Superlative of Days I 



62 VALKYRIA. 

Unworthy to kiss the feet ^ — how blest the lips flush'd with 
the Hope of Redemption, to kiss such holy dust ! But 
white hands of Faith, led forth by the Comforter, 

May ever and everlastingly touch the immaculate hem of 
His garment all-healing, as He walks with the Father 
in the Kingly Glory His, balm'd of holy myrrh ! 

And love devout and pure may ever wash His feet with 
the tears of a spiritual joy ; while forgiven we anoint 
His Crown'd Head with a perfume more precious than 
sanctified the pure priestly Aaron). 

Thus, mingl'd with thoughts so transcendent, and mem- 
'ries so sacred, ancestral-ward trace we the lineage 
lordly of the Knight who delight we to honor — who 
sojourns in fair Albion, across the sweet Avon I 

This honored heir of generations many — in their exile, 
proving his masterful powers — his great moral prow- 
ess, his heroic love of honor, and fidelity to the land 
of his birth, and his gentle Gentile friends ; 

Hath won their priceless meed of love — and the laurels 
unfading with which their grateful tender hands de- 
lighteth to crown him as his royal head crownward 
imperially bends. 

And for him Southern hearts shall forever warmly throb, 
for, from beyond those far-off Judean-hills, across the 
sweep of years, baptised with tender tears, comes the 
everlas4:ing-echo of " love one another ! " 

( For, We are all one God's — and O ! Immortal Soul! 
that GOD IS LOVE!) — and tenderest memories of 
Benjamin, treasured shall be, while the world echoes 
the honor of our self-banished brother. 



VALKYR J A. 65 

Ay ! — for thee, just Judah — Knight of Honor's creed 
and crown, dewy-fresh, soul-budded, love-encrimson'd 
myrtles interweave we here, among the leaf-fam'd 
laurels we are fain to bring thee in our own happy 
turn ; — 

With some fragrant heart-leaves too, — (crushed — 
their sweetness distilling) — to tell the tender truths 
exhal'd in Southern sandal-woods, as they drip their 
aromatic spicery from mem'ry's golden urn : 

Sweet bay-budded laurels from our white magnolia vales, 
will swing thee sw^eeter cereus-sculptured-censers of 
love's unceasing incense, than the praises won of 
strangers — and all they have to give I 

For, while Southern hearts shall throb, or Southland 
altars burn with memories a-flarae with the War's sac- 
rifices, — past hist'ry thine with ours endearing, by 
indissoluble chains jewell-link'd, — imforgotten thou! 
while a Southern patriot lives. — 

Still — in thy far English-home, may the laurels that be- 
girt thy kingly brow, bud and blossom immortally 
beautiful! — May her Imperial Majesty, the Queen 
you loyal serve. 

Grant you ever royal favor ! — imperial welcome to her 
Court — the royalties rare of her Realm, — and with 
her own queenly hands " Knight you " with the hon- 
ors you so worthily deserve ! 

But the Blue and the Grey are united, — (still Fac- 
tions ferment on the Forum! ) Sheath'd is the sword 
that brothers unsheath'd for each other, — and the 



64 VALKYR lA. 

dread battle-clouds ominous, roll'd back from our bon- 
ny blue sky, 

Where the Thirty-Eight Stars of our Union are shining, 
while its millions of sovereigns all echo " E Pluribus 
Unum ! " and forever — " Iti God is oicr trust ! ' while 
the years in their flight are cycling us by : 

And dainty-disc'd dasies, white with the purity of 
"Peace," drift all the hallow'd sod by murmurous 
streams of Springtide, while the Blue and the Grey 
enclasp hands — 

And with hearts that beat with one love for the Dead of 
One Land, go forth at April-tide to garland with love, 
as with glory, the Immortal embalm'd in the Holly- 
woods, the Arlingtons, and Oaklands of our Fairest 
of Lands ! 

What, should we need thee, great Judah ? wilt thou 
never come bacic to espouse thy first love ? Can thy 
home of adoption well spare thee ? (they've glory of 
Gladstone.) We waft thee our blessing and love — 
though you left us. 

Wilt hast'n.? — if only to sit at the Feast of Re- 
union } Great souls — as great nations would bid all 
the Brave, the Great, and the Good, to come in their 
bridal-attire } We'd have them rejoice in our joy, as 
they wept us when sorrow bereft us ! 

Time was, when . . . . " We sat down by Babylon and 
wept," and our harps (with our hearts) on the willows 
were brok'n, as we sang no sweet songs of our Zion: 
But reunited — permitted to re-build, re-temple, and 
re-people our cities, — we've Oratorios divine! — we 
have tpurnev, and timbrel, and dance! 



VALKYIUA. 65 

The banners float gaily their colors, the Knights in 
plumed helmets (and favors ) for the jousts, — thept ize 
is a diamonded Heart! — lo ! they're ent'ring the lists ! 
Would you tilt here and win for the Fairest ? then 
"Lancelot" we bid thee lay in rest thy knightly lance ! 

Come ! — 

^' All is qtdet along the Potomac to-7iigJtt!' 
Except now and then an unwary Cadet 
Is shot, as he dallies with Beauty at moonlight, 
By an archer of Cupid conceal'd in the thicket. 



Who hath eyes to see let him see ; and ears to hear let 
him hear. The " Hon. Judah P. Benjamin, once an 
honor'd son of the South, now in the foremost rank.of 
Queen's counsellors at London ; " — 

Is the laurel'd Knight of Honor, who . . . '' refus d to re- 
tain a fee in a case to whtcJi lie could not give his atten- 
tion : — though it has been the custom for " (self-en- 
riching) " centuries at London, — 

When a barrister receives a fee, never to return it, though 
he were unable to give a moment to the cause," — in- 
equitable custom that robbeth the client — Wi^ counsel 
enriching to splendor : — 

But — " over this barrier the honor of brave Benjamin 
bounded most nobly I He would have nothing for ivhich 
he was unable full service to render ! " 

** Legal etiquette'' indeed I Genteel Murder wears 
the crest-of-honor-so-call'd ! Fashionable '* Defalcation," 



66 VALKYR I A. 

— Licens'd Sacrileges ! and the aristocratic " Bank- 
rupt " (oft) a highway-man in elegant disguise ! — 
All hydra-headed monsters array'd against God and His 
handmaidens, Justice and Honor, and Truth, and 
Purity, shall shriek as Time shall . . . ^^ hurl the hate- 
ful thuigs from age to age'' . . . while Mercy clasps 
her trembling hands across her sweet forgiving eyes ? 

Thus, Benjamin, — preux chevalier ! with a spirit most 
fearless and unfalt'ring — and brave hands that dar'd 
to grasp only the Right, hath successfully Honor re- 
stor'd to her Throne, by earnest and noble en- 
deavor ! — 

There s a royal and 7'ubied example of honor ! in this 
cUnquant-of-shoddy, and Rolled-Gold-Age of counter- 
feit greatness! an imperial incentive to virtue that 
wooes you with ineffable power forever ! 

Ay! thou chivalric sons of a lordly nation, . . . "Now 
put your shields before your hearts and fight, With 
hearts more proof than shields," — and keep your 
swords and souls my knightly brothers, forever sans 
tache I 

"Wherever Honors's sword is drawn, 
And Justice rears her head," 

Be thou thQ first to succor and defend — the last to leave 
the field where Valor battles for the Right ! Be thou, 
every chivalric son of you, a Benjamin when honors 
in the contest! 

W^hile all the wondering World looks on to praise — 



VALKYR I A. ■ 67 

.and all of Heaven smiles to see such heroism, such 
divine and daring doing of souls the bravest, and the 
best! 

Espouse his sacred cause ! For while the golden cycles 
run the golden sands of Time, centuries shall chant 
for him " Fama semper vivat /" 

And while tender fingers true and fair shall twine 
this Judah crowns — (with crowns for thee also!) — 
faithful hearts shall echo ever — " Fa7na semper vivat /" 

And — " Z^ bon temps viendra ! " Ah ! the good time will 
come I is e'en now at hand — so near, that fervid fancy 
sees the arching of her ceil-hued skies all star-fring'd, 
bending so benignly above our own fair Land — 

This Land of Lands, the proudest and the freest ! unfail- 
ing fount of ** milk and honey " flowing, — sweet Vale 
of this our Eschol, yielding flowers the fairest — and 
ripest-fruits the richest, for many a Star-and-Stripe 
en-banner'd band! 

Land of happy plains, all white with lily-petal'd peace, and 
ripe with luscious clusters that never hang too high 
for faithful hands to reach, — of women fair and brave 
as the chevaliers they love ! — 

The *' Home, sweet Home " of a people powerful and 
prosp'rous, whose '' Vive la Republique T' \?>jubilante 
with " Liberty " for King ! — a rich inheritance, whose 
rights were wrought of patriot-blood, and seal'd with 
patriot-love ! 

(Ah ! how we late have sinned against our Fathers ! Ay, 
but have we not drank the Marah-draught of such trans- 
gression? In a Wilderness of doubt, of disunion, and 
disobedient dissension, we long have journey'd sad. 



68 VALKYRIA. 

Yet, May the God in whom we trusty forgive all ! —r 
granting this REUNION, be not a momentary view 
of the Promis'd Land from Pisgah ? — but that surely 
we may enter and possess it^ with Yiis blessing wise and 
glad!) 

" Whom He hath forgiven much, loveth much." But 
Gethsemane and Golgotha must ever gloom with sad 
remembrances : — Ay ! might we not call it Valkyria ? 
(our crowds of slain.) 

Nay, — rather christen we it, with the bright and bloom- 
ful laurels — Lunaria — leav'd and wov'n in with all 
the glory-gilded immortality of that " Sweet By-and- 
By," where no love-encrimson'd tender hearts are 
pierced through with pain. 



The moon was shining silver splendor — the molten 
splendor of a Southern summer night, just in sweet 
September's dawn, Cleopatra-clad in scarlet glow of 
bloom ; 

When through the summer-silence steal wafts of sudden, 
sweet, and subtile sighs of violets, of myrtles, and of 
roses (like memories that cluster 'round the lov'd), 
scenting all the vales of gloom. 

What time the lingering August-lilies dozing, dream'd 
serenely of the fleeting glory of one supreme white day, 

And wand' ring winds had trembling wooed the sweets, 
on scented isles of brilliant beds of tropic bloom, 
and brought them all the way : — 



VALKYJ^IA. 69 



The superb band at camp De Trobriand (where the bon- 

nie boys blithe as the blue harebells and anemones that 

mountain rills have water'd), 
Gave concert grand by moonlight —thrilling strains of 

Godfrey, Gungel, Schubert, Strauss, and Beyer — for 

the gallant troops were quarter'd) I — 

The subtle strains of sweet " Ernani," (the soul divine 
of Verdi,) floated o'er the hills and died upon their 
hearts, 

(Just as the last white queen-rose ope's her unkist mai- 
den lips, confessing all the sweetness of her soul, ere 
the sceptre of Summer-tide departs.) 

Paul Chilton, pride of a Fed'ral father, was he who ear- 
nestly besought her, 

And I'hna Eshton, she, the fair and only child, a lovely 
" Rebel" daughter: — 

*' My heart is wistful, Ihna, of that our nord, — my soul's 
' let there be light ? ' 

You will not let the Past rise up to thrust its pain be- 
tween us with all its gloom and blight ? 

Your father fell at Richmond, and mine at Malvern Hill, 
— each fought for what he deemed the right ! — 

(Peace unto their ashes, while glory wreathes their 
names I ) and by all that sacred in thy plight, 

Yield me here, sweet Ihna, consent of all I ask — the 
thine and mine — love's infinite communion ? — 



70 VALKYR I A. 

And if Spirits joy to know Earth's joy, blissful be they 
then, to know their patriot children's union ! 

I go, ere long, fair Ihna, back to my Northland home : — 
wilt crown my life with love ? tell me, Sweet, will 
you come ? 

Cheerless that proud home ; its splendor holds no charm 
now that could yield me joy without you, 

For, Ihna, iny lifes Sunrise and Soul-light I I have no 
joy, nor love, nor hope that does not cling about you." 

"Ah, well," said Ihna, "I have my faiths, and you, 

Paul, 7nust have yours ; yet our tastes aesthetic hold 

one creed. 
And," — the sweet -rose-face was blushing the bliss that 

flush'd her heart, — " love that's true must own its King 

indeed ! — " 

"Then you will ! my own love's very own ! " cried Paul, 
in ecstasy of joy ; " O, Ihna, this one hour supreme 

Is sweet fruition rare of hopes so long deferr'd — ^ a royal 
reality — so late a lover's dream ! 

And heaven help me in fulfilment of each hope, love- 
enflush'd, that thrills through all your soul, — 

And dearer render'd be, through faithful love to thee, 
through all the passing years that blissfully shall roll." 

"But — then — dear Paul," half falter'd Ihna, "you will 

not tear me from all I cherish here .'' 
I know your home is fair, and I could love your people ; 

but O, Paul, this sunny Southland to me is very dear! " 



VALKYRIA. 71 

" Nay, go make your bower with me, in my land so fair 

to see, beside the summer lakes. 
And when the flower's fade each year, ' TJie Swallows 

homeward flyl and our Northland's clad in snow-flakes. 

If, happier my bonnie bird would be, I'll bring her back 

to this Semaramis-South." 
Happy tears were gemming the gentianella eyes, and 

tender grateful words glow'd upon the rose-bud mouth. 

Thus, the Blue and Grey went wooing, to some sweet 
trysting-place where fond betrothal found them, 

And, faithful to their plight, many a bridal-pair hath 
knelt at the rubied altar where fair-hair'd Hymen 
bound them. 

Yea, from Pennsylvania's pale-hued hills and crystal rills» 
that wind through sweetest sylvan vales, 

To Georgia's gorgeous orange-groves that skirt the sea, 
with oak, and oleanders that crimson all her dales ! 

Proud names, once alien far back in the phantom Past, 
in wealth of wedding vtotiograms are wov'n now, 

Her golden lyre is strung a-new, and the myrtle-wreath 
has flushed to fadeless bloom around Erato's love- 
crown'd brow. 

Many a Knight chivalric descended of the Blue, is curl- 
ing purple-cluster'd vineyards (fringed with orange- 
groves.) 

Around the Southern hills, and aisles of richest rose- 
land vines within whose flow'r-grottoes they wed and 
live their loves, 



72 VALKYRIA 

And rarest fruits of gold'n-grain'd and while-fleec'd 
fields, with ripe old orchards tempting, enrich the 
happy homes they've made deep in white magnolia 
vales of Southland. 

And thus, at last, the daughters fair and dusky-eyed of 
*' Dixie," have proudly conquer d the brave invading 
Knights of Northland. 

An old French proverb, in translation tender, tells that 
. . . . " Love is potent, but money is omnipotent." 

And yet, Love could wield the lance, where Valor lost 
her sword I and olden foes can live in peace and szueet 
content. 

As well hath many a Knight-of-Grey, wander'd North 
away, and wooed unto his heart and house, a moss- 
rose Maud or Ora, 

And many a sweet fulfilment of love's infinite hopes have 
cast their bridal-veilings o'er her ! 

A lovely link along the color-chord, — soids are woven 
Jiere — Blue and Grey is blending beautiful, — 

While with wedded hands enclasp'd, they rally round the 
blood baptiz'd and dear old Flag, all dutiful ! 

Our British kindred love their Poets' Blue-and-gold ; but 
weave for us the broider'd web of blue-and-grey, 

That securely enclasping the sacred bonds in Love's 
rosy hands. United, journey we alway ! 



VALKYRIA. 73 



"No matter whatever the task Nature gives. 

If the man to his duty yet loftily lives, 

The human will weary ox faint with its cross. 

Thougli he hears the wild waves in the far future toss, 

Will murmur and sigh to play out on the shore, 

*Mong rose-shells arui pearls and the burden give o'er." 

L. R. Messenger. 

In a warm Southern bower of laurel aud Luxembourg- 
rose, 

Where the spirit of poesie, with the crimson camelia oft 
glows, — 

Where dreaming is sweetest, yet querieth the Heart, 
Is Love real? — 

Then why, ever wistful, meet we here, no response to 
the '•' soul's higher Ideal } " 

All day long a Spirit had wooed from the " mothers " 

sweet fancies, 
And twin'd round love's rosy statues coronals crimson 

of poesie's pansies : 
All day long, dreaming of faiths that had faded, or hopes 

that had flushed. 
Ere in anguish had waded, or sorrow the soul's rare 

vintage had crush'd. 

(Wistful all day long), — *' Soft threnodies from soul 

and brain, — 
(IVistfully, all day) — ''Pierced by an inward thorn of 

pai7i " .* — 
All day long from Thought's enjewel'd shrine broke the 

subtle soul of Song, 
In wistful waiting — Oh ! Heart, will hope infinite 

yield fulfilment ere lue journey longf 



74 



VALKYRIA. 



So tired was Musa of the Ideals e'en that liv'd in her 

song or her pen, 
So tired — she cast them aside, for a wooing of daisies 

that starrily golden'd the glen, — 
Fled awhile from her quaint little haunt of a home — 

suburban and sweet, 
Where all that is pure and pathetic, that is tender and 

beautiful, meet ; 

Where like a sweet Vesta, stood she priestess, to a 

filial love and its duty, 
Sweet solace of a mother's silver-hair'd age, — this 

dainty, fair one of rare beauty ! 
One of Nature's Exquisites wrought of infinite soul 

and a royalty born, 
To suffer and sacrifice, — an immaculate incense of love 

on the altars of morn. 

But her robes royal just skirted the surf-crested shores 

of a rigid Reality, 
While betroth'd to art-loves, isolated, and faiths that 

were clinging to life's Ideality ; 
As devotedly dow'ring Duty with Love .... ''She 

livd her life lowly and Poesy grand " — 
(In melodies matchless and sweet,) ....*' Swept 

her soul-Jiarp with its infi^iite hand^ 

But, repining sometimes with regret for the lost, mimosa- 

soul'd Musa's fond heart was oppress'd. 
And like a storm-toss'd flow'r, dash'd with contentions 

that shiver'd the shield of its rest ! 
When e'en ....*' the soul's charmed world," 
. ' where her genius wrought ever profound, 



VALKYRIA. 75 

And its Ideals holy, that Beauty with her magical touches 
had lovingly crown'd ; 

Fail'd in fulfilment of promise — responsive and true 

to her spirit so wistfully calling — 
To bring back the hours of bliss, and " repose of sweet 

thought y while roses were fragrantly falling ; 
When despairful a-while yearningly went she in search 

of soul-help and strength to inspire 
Sacred incentives to Art, — to bear up the cross and 

faint not, as she struggled on higher ! 

'Twas just in the dawn-flush cf a roseate earlier- 
blossoming Spring, 

When the sensitive aesthetic soul is plighting betrothal 
to each lovely thing ; 

And a deep warm azure dyed the argently-arching 
Aprilly-infinite skies, 

And many a mossen old cranny was blue with the dream 
of wild-violet eyes ; 

And summery sighs in hushed sweetness cleft the fond 

fragrance of eve, 
As the wheatlets all gold' n, with lilies and myrtles, their 

love-garlands fairily weave ; 
While the spirit of Beauty hath quickened the wolds 

with a spell 
Whose magical charm thrills the soul with a sweetness 

no singer can tell ! 

But with climbing the hills, and cleaving the dales, by 
winding of brooklet and brier, 



76 VALKYRIA. 

Diving but deeper the dells a-chime with heathery bells ; 

then climbing — still climbing up higher, — 
In search of the Ihlang-Ihlang, and wood-bine weaving, 

at last, like a child grown weary of play, 
Art, — still with its power — like a charm drew her 

forth, and back to its haunts she wended her way. 

In the heart of the City liv'd an artist renown'd, 

ven'rable man with flowing white beard, badge of 

his glory ; 
But the light of the eyes that never grew old, kindled in 

a soul rarely gifted, told his life's lovely story : — 
Up to the studio — up ! mounting higher, Musa blithely 

bounded as if wing'd Pegasus-sped — 
Up! — long flights of dim-litten stairs — climbing to 

reach the Heights where repos'd true Art loves and 

unto glory wed. 

What a world of light broke upon her there at the 
end of the shadowy-stair — light of genius' glowing 
flame, 

That wreath'd all its idols in a beauty immortal while 
they breath'd the proud glory of their grand maker's 



name 



In the glowing lingerings of a day so soulfully sunny, 
the Gates seem'd ajar, this studio was gain'd ; 

Where her poet-soul knelt 'mong Art's divine works, 
forgetting 'twas dower'd with longings that pain'd; 

Knelt 

"At the altar of Beauty, where Protean fire 
Is left by its Oversouls soaring on higher ..." 



VALKYR I A. 77 

With crimson lips parted, and eyes of eager gaze, she 
stood in hush'd ecstacy, in the ha]f-dreamy, soft- 
subdued light 

That fell on rarest-wrought works from the beautiful 
realm of his soul's mystic world, like the stars of an 
orient night ; 

As its touches, soft and saintly, swept the infinite harp 
of her soul with a masterful hand. 

Like a daisy blown in dusk of green meadows was this 
rare haunt of art — Beauty's grotto with sceptre and 
wand ! 

Through the hush'd eloquence of the place, swept a 

mystical sweetness, fragrant of beauty as the creamy 

richness of Provence roses ; 
Like the glow in the half-open'd heart of a tea-rose were 

the visions that crept o'er her senses in that day's 

tender closes ; 
Wooing, witching fancies, that breathe forevermore a 

poesy pure in that rare expression Art. 



A captivated captive in the meshes all golden of this 

exquisitely radiant reality, 
A royal realm, radiating like the sun ; Wonder- World, 

art-wrought of art-ideality ! 
Half-worshipful — regardent, listen'd Musa to this grand 

King of Artists, while he told her fitful fragments of 

a dream 
That haunted him still with its mystic revelation so 

exquisitely supreme. 



78 VALKYRIA. 

Divinely to the Beautiful wed — through his dream- 
world of dreams, to a far-off world he went drifting, 

To see ..." What my s fry lies out in tJie shadowy 
unknown?'^ — where the God of Gifts the anointed 
are gifting. 

And, in this artist's dream, while the magic brush was 
thrown aside, and the marvelous touch was at rest, 

The soul's eyes were open still, looking at the myst'ries 
impearl'd beyond the shores of Time with the Blest. 

On — far on through the shadow-world of Dreams, went 

he in search of truth ; on, on to the phantom studio 
Of an artist long dead, — who liveth yet, to the spiritual 

studio of Italy's idol, the great Correggio ; — 
Who, (lifted above Envy and Earth) revealed the sea^et 

of his art to the Dreamer who sought him, 
And showd the wond^fing eyes his inimitable palette 

from which the beauty immortal of Earth-life had 

wrought him. 
Correggio's secret, he said, lay in colors, of which he 

employ'd but few in the rare execution of art, — 

" I dream'd," said the artist, " that I visited the studio of 

Correggio : I saw nothing I had not before seen. 
Save, some rare combinations, that make one marvellous 

perfect, of what sev'ral lovely separates had been : — 
Besides, Correggio went on, " I have done all I can do 

on Earth : I am painting still ; and as I've done with 

the Earth-life, 
I will give you my secret. It lies simply in my own — 

my very own method of coloring, and you must study 

true life. — 



VALKYEIA. 79 

To enter into the soul of the object, — and with the true 
artist-touch, woo it forth to look on and speak to be- 
holders ! 

There must be no striking or fully defin'd outlines ; — 
but that you may crown with glory your work, and 
gather Reward of Endeavors — 

All the beautifully blending tints that melt imperceptably 
into each other, floating dream-like away in the shad- 
dowy background, 

Should be so artistically treated in their delicate grada- 
tion, that there is no telling where the one begins, and 
the ending of the other is found. 

Now , I make you master of my secret? — See?'* . . . . 

and I saw him mix his enchanted palette of colors 

simple and few : — 
And, little Musa, ( your spirit poetic comprehends the 

things that the unanointed do not), — as Correggio 

told it to me^ so will I tell it to you ! ' 

Thus honor'd above elders and erudites, in this proudful 

privilege conferr'd of the venerable artist whose genius 

she rever'd. 
She learn' d t/ze secret too sacred to disclose, — saw him. 

too, mix the magic palette of colors, — that lost art 

and long, so mysteriously recover d — 
Colors so incomparable from which he still and daily 

wooes those creations so rare of inimitable beauty. 



8o VALKYRIA. 

In the tender hushes of the dying day, Musa found her 
home, the wee pretty cottage she'd christen'd " Daisy- 
wild," 

And all in the tenderest mood of fond expectant love, 
her mother awaited, at the vine-wreath'd vestibule, for 
the coming of her child, 

The never-omitted kiss of greeting, and the laughing 
love-light of the tender grey eyes of her mother made 
query, with her words ; — 

** Ah, Musa, my love, what kept you so long ? found you 
in your ramble some blossoming nook too bewitching ? 
or City- ward, some art-love, my bird ? " 

*' Tve been in search of the Beautiful, ma mere, and I 

went dreaming too long, from my precious ma-ma! 

but I've brought you some treasure 
To suffice you, Sweetheart ! — There ? " and with other 

caresses and kisses that seal'd the affection sincere 

between them, the girl shower'd upon her a Hberal 

measure 
Of flowers her ramble had garner'd, and fruits from the 

tropics she'd purchas'd for that mother who unforgot- 

ten ever, 
Filled the sacredest place in her heart, being heir to the 

best of her loves, her longings, and wishes that crown'd 

her with their all, and forever ! 

** Besides I've some rare things to tell you, pet mamma ; " 
said Musa, enthusiastically throwing herself down be- 
side her, as across the fond lap the girl's arms were 
folded in rest, — 



VALKYR I A. Si 

(Her old child-way endearing, never lorgotten, and never 
reprov'd, and no wisdom of womanhood, nor dignity of 
elegant demeanor could win her from love's winning 
ways that so richly their home-life had blest). 

And then, with all the warm Greek love of Art that 
thrill'd her young soul, she told the strange story of 
her recent rare lesson in learning, 

Touch'd with the tenderness of her fancy's own tintings, 
and the genius-wrought gods of her Minerva-fir'd 
brain, told her spirit's high, and infinite yearning. 

With the studio-visions painted in all the rich hues of 
her wealth of word-colors, — and the artist's strange 
Dream to her listening fond mother, retold, — 

(Wooed by the manifest interest thatglow'd in the speak- 
ing grey eyes, with their light-dimplings all eloquent 
with the praises they e'er for Musa hold), — 

She wander'd far down the rosy-aisles and nave of the 
Temple of Art, where Thought, Soul, and Genius may 
wander and welcome, and each statue starts up to 
greet thee with Art's holy kiss, and their story : . . . 

" Using really but three, a rare Trinity-Color^'' she de- 
clar'd, " and from which he wooes all the wonderful 
tints that crown all his works with an aureate glory. 

O ! that charming gradation of carnation or warm tints \ 
those infinite middle or cool tints ! — lovely shadings 
and exquisite half-shadings, 

Combining their wonderful charms to complete the Per- 
fections he leaves on every creation he touches, with 
no flaw in the beauty that defies the tarnish of Time 
and its fadings ! 



82 VALKYR I A. 



Soul-full of art-loves a-dream in the fine eyes, whose 
shadowy depths their beautiful myst'ries hinting, 
glow'd like the heart of a flower, 

As the artist pridefuUy pointed to sev'ral fine portraits 
just finish'd, life-like and grand in their lovely perfec- 
tion of touch, and of tint in rich dower. 

*' Those, I've just painted,' he said, * after many experi- 
ments, and the secret late taught me in that dream by 
my favorite master, Correggio ; 

It's a new and beautiful method, of which / alone am 
master now, — as the creations I shall woo to my can- 
vas shall attest, as they go out to the world from the 
heart of my studio : 

After thirty years wedded to my art, sixteen years of 
tireless experimenting, and the dawn of that dreavty 
at last I've produc'd a portrait that, (connoiseurs have 
marvel'd,) — 

For durability, execution, color, soulful expression and 
perfection of finish, I may be pardon'd, child, for be- 
lieving is unrival'd ! ' 

How soulfuUy, mother, I studied the faces upon whose 
animated features softly flow'd the dawn-light of the 
studio, like an Aurora of art ! 

They were real men who looked upon me there with all 
that natural grace, and symmetry, and soulful expres- 
sion that touches the heart, 

That steps out from the canvas to greet one with a smile, 
a tear, a heart-throb, anything answering the heart 
or a soul would thrill to another! 



VALKYFIA, S3 

That ////^^^i-i-^?/"///^ that distinguish'd Correggio's gods, 

Graces, nymphs, and goddesses, surprisingly grandy 

were they, mother; 
Executed with that rare feHcity this artist alone can woe 

to his touch, — the subjects appealing to the artist's 

own soul of life, 
Flush'd with deep feeling for grace and the expression 

of tender and soulful emotion. Simply marvellous in 

depicting ^glorious life:' — 

Bold, easy, and full of that breathing and speaking life 

we so long to perpetuate ! Then the manifold beauties 

of color ! 
Wonderful flesh tints so warm and animated with the 

gleam of a soul, so beautifully ideal, and yet so start- 

lingly real of fervor ! 
So tender and true, that one can almost see the rise and 

fall of the crimson heart- tide beneath, and feel the soft 

touch of a hand that one knows, 
The kisses of fond lips that love us, or the^/^w of sweet 

life on the velvety cheek warm and fresh as the 

blush of a full Damask rose. 
But the crowning glory of his work, is his rare capacity 

of painting the souls expression, — calling to you, 

appealing to you, — 
Speaking to you through ev'ry glowing feature, telling 

its passions, its loves, its hatreds ; pain, pride, pleasure 

beams upon you, 
In the soul-light that falls smiling, rippling and dimpling 

through the soulful blue, bonnie brown, or diamond 

black eyes that look their thoughts wherever you 

turn ! — 



84 rALKYRIA. 

The aesthetic, mysterious, and indescribableart of grasp- 
ing and fixing feeling there in its varied and immortal 
beauties that holily burn — 

That soiilftil something between Earth and Heaven, en- 
dearing us to the one, and leading us onward and up- 
ward to the other, as tender and belov'd. 

You want the portrait of a lov'd, and may-be a lost one! 
you do not want merely a painted representative of 
what you once lov'd — 

A statuesque form and face void of all feeling or expres- 
sion, hanging a dumb mockery ever before you — a 
voiceless blank — 

With no answering look of love, no sympathetic gleam 
of the soul that answers to your spirit's cry, while no 
echo the canvas sends back ! 

But your heart cries out for the old love — for a face 
with every lov'd feature your soul has kist, leaving the 
glow of love encrimson'd upon it ! — 

With fond lips ready to speak their approval, soft hands 
touching but tenderly, ready to enclasp you in love's 
jewelled circlet ; 

And proud tender eyes that follow you lovingly all about 
the room, just as they did in the sweet Long Ago, 
ready to laugh, or to weep with you yet, 

To support and strengthen — love and encourage you 
ever — with heart unto heart, and soul to soul thrill- 
ing, as no other has ever lov'd you yet ! 

As involuntarily you hold out eager arms to enclasp that 
lov'd memory, the while it seems glowing and ani- 
mated, stepping out from the gilded frame that haloes 
its beauty, to greet you. 



VALKYRIA. 85 

While gazing enchanted on these lovely creations, for 
creations they are, one dreams of Correggio's master- 
piece, the Assumption, coming up to meet you 

With mem'ries infinite: and again exclaiming with 
Titian as he utter'd when first he beheld the great 
work : — ' /// were not Titian / zuould be 

CORREGGIO ! ' — 
So, with a loyal heart unto art, I declare, if I coidd not be 
a CoRREGGio,/^^:/;^ would I be a Van Stavoren ! — 
that King of modern Artists, crown'd with the glory 
that gleams from his studio ! 

A marvelous Master so reticent and modest that the 
world knows comparatively little of his grand tri- 
umphs in modern Art : 

Half-unconscious of his own power, with an unenvious 
and amiable disposition, benovolent and art-loving 
heart. 

As the sweetness of expression that overdawns like a 
roseate dream, every inch of canvas his enchanted 
brush touches, so fully attests ; 

While, * content in the practice of his art, and for his 
art,' — paving the way for the Anointed to follow and 
gather the highest and holiest of Art's best, — 

* A golden way for the Beautiful 
United to the True : ' — 

Rather than alone for Fame's immortality ! After so long 
enjoying the happy reality, the result of his genius and 
experience, 

Will the World credit him with the invention of the 



86 VALKYR I A 

beautiful Rembrandt, over which it has so long rav'd, 

— that picture of preeminence ? 

And (as I believe), the lovely Ivory-type ? and for the 
grand triumph of painting life-size poj^raits from ordi- 
nary pJiotos and old faded daguerreotypes ? — 

Will the World deny him his own, still, because this 
modest man, in aesthetic-love with the ideal beautiful, 
his art's highest types, 

Retiring to his studio, that grotto of glory, cares little 
what the world prattles of; while his finely-fibre'd art- 
ist-soul is too sensitively proud to pencil a name 

That should be immortal, on the corner of every piece 
of canvas that his art glorifies and crowns unto future 
fame. 

You who have ostentatiously and greedily gather'd the 
laurels to enwreath an unworthy brow, yield them to 
their rightful owner, 

That, in the triumph of truth, Genius glorified may go 
on to heights unattain'd, — of art-work and life-work, 

— a royal prize-winner! 

Yet — the crowning triumph of this great inventive 
Genius, is just within his grasp, and ere long, will 
come forth like a new star arisen, 

To startle a wondering and admiring world, with its 
triumph so signal, with its glory of art modern, with 
naught of the counterfeit bedizen ! 

Yet I've no right, mother, to trespass farther on this art- 
holy ground, but shall wait with the world, to behold 
the grandest triumph Art hath yet known — 



VALKYRIA. 87 

When fiU'd with the wonder of all he has done, each 
heart with its tribute shall throb, 'till it thrills to the 
tongue with its praise, and Fame shall surrender the 
Crown to its Own I 

Like Correggio — his favorite spirit-master — by * force 
of his individual genius, he has created a manner entire- 
ly original, 

In which movement, variety, and the most delicate gra- 
dation of light and shadow, are the principal element,' 
— rare in its purity so virginal : 

And has . . . . ' carried the art of chiaroscuro to a per- 
fection equalling that attained by Michel Angelo in 
form, and Raphael in expression ; 

Or by Giorgione and Titian in color ; " — and all that's 
beautiful to grasp or conceive he has wreath'd in aure- 
ola about all that's within his artistic possession ! 

Says Fuseli, of Rubens — 'He compounded from the 
splendor of Paul Veronese and the glow of Tintoretto 
that florid system of manner'd magnificence 

Which is the element of his art, and the principle of his 
school : ' — So, Van Stavoren has compounded from 
the splendor of his own radiant originality — (Beauties 
preeminence), — 

And the ^/(^w of Correggio, a rich combination of con- 
genial beauty, the result of which is a free and serene 
loveliness of form and expression, — 

A magnificent representation of life, realizing what Keu- 
gler calls — ' the glorification of earthly existence,' — 
and all that he touches is of this a mute confession. 



88 . VALKVRIA. 

O the magic charm of his color, and the cheerful seren- 
ety of his style ! the vigor, and beauty, and soul per- 
vading life, 

With which he invests each object that glows under his 
true artistic touch, — lifted supremely above ordinary 
art-strife ! — 

Proving the wonderful mastery he holds o'er his art, — 
daily developing new beauties and grand possibilites 
that await the true grasp 

Of those who aspire, and upward struggle to the Heights 
where are hoarded the treasures of Art's Ultima ThulCy 
cast about with Genuis' jewell'd clasp ! 

YW^ faces have a mingled expression of dignity, tender- 
ness, and grace, which are inimitable ! His fondness 
for life — expression — soul, pervades all his work: 

His power and command over the stronger contrasts of 
Hghtand shadow — through all the foldings of draperies 
— flutings of columns — or cragwilds of rock where 
the Beautiful lurk, — 

Are simply mircaulous, and their delicate gradations are 

so fine, that the 'shadows seem mutable and 

aeiial, as if between the eye and the colors,' 

Melting and flowing into each other like the dreamful 
glowings of a Sicilian dawn, or a tropic sunset, the 
which a Ruskin-soul had caught the flame of the 
flaming colors ! 

Ay, he paints life in its varied splendor, giving each 
piece or object its distinct and personal character, — a 
dixided originality, beautiful as 'tis overpowering. 



VALKYR lA. 89 

I beheld there a gallery of grandeur, — every piece of 
which a cognoscente might justly style an exquisite 
chcf-d oettvre of rich dowering. 

O I mother, I claim to be no connoisseur, but I know 
the ^^^?//?/?// however glorified, and recognize the radi- 
ant gleam of a soul. 

Or touch of tenderness in tint, or tone, or hght or 
shade, — slumbering in eyes of fathomless depths, or 
trembling on lips that murmur of love's infinite soul. 

Animated and striking was this rare and attractive group 
of unrival'd portraiture, — the colors all glowing while, 
Titian-like, the light flow'd in artistic splendor 

Around that marvelous group, in every gradation of 
tone, — a mutely eloquent proof of the inimitable brush 
of that master-hand of touches so tender, — 

That wrought among Ideals and Reals, where royal 
Genius left her touch, while Art told her triumph ! 
Faces } oh I there were heads of senatorial dignity, — 

Statesmen, poets, and priests, much-a-do's, and mer- 
chants, all mix'd with rose-bud childhood, and glori- 
fied womanhood in lovely benignity I 

Artistically grouped side by side, as in life they uncon- 
genially jostle each other, while a-down life's winding- 
wild pathway they go. 

Some to tho^ plodding material mostly, some to the liidi- 
crotcs, and others to Incre are wed, some to the Real, 
and others unto the Ideal in the light of Infinity's glow ! 

The men, — who are men, are crown'd with the dignity 
true of majestic manhood ; while his females all blume 
with the glow of a beauty that's happy in the con- 
sciousness of life, — 



90 VALKYRIA. 

And all seem at peace with the world, having put the 
dread contest aside, and won the repose of a rest that 
knoweth nor contention nor strife. 

The gentleman who, on entering this studio, involunta- 
rily extended his hand to greet, as he thought, an 
old friend, whose life-size portrait stood facing the en- 
trance, 

(Thus paid the artist a high and deserv'd compliment), 
— and discovering his mistake stood in wondering be- 
wilderment, while the beauteous place held his rapt 
senses in loveliest trance, — 

Still reminding one here of those rival Greek artists, 
Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who, good-natur'd, used fre- 
quently to enter into contest, 

To decide the professional superiority of one o'er the 
other — or who was of Genius most belov'd — or 
wrought, who, the grandest of art, and the best ? 

Zeuxis painted a basket full of grapes with such exqui- 
site truth to fond Nature, that the birds unaware, flew 
to the painting and endeavor'd to eat of the fruit — 
so tempting they were ! — 

Parrhasius, all know, painted a linen cloth or drap'd 
curtain, hanging in natural folds ; and so successfully 
wrought he the work — and so rare. 

That Zeuxis, on being taken before it, requested the ar- 
tist to remove the cloth and show him his painting — 
eager no doubt for the truth ; — 

But, on being made aware of the artistic deception, ex- 
claim'd, " You have conquer'd, Parrhasius — I misled 
birds, but you have deceiv'd an artist ! " — an art- 
pnointed, ay, from his youth! 



VALKYRIA. 91 

Much hath been said, and some written, of the great- 
ly admir'd portrait of httle Cameo Litton, painted by 
my great modern Master, — 

And yet I doubt me not, that many incapable of doing 
more, have simply admir'd the innocent beauty of the 
child, and the posing in which he hath cast her, 

With no thought of yielding to the artist the fame-en- 
jewel'd crown that should gleam above his brow, — 
for this lovely creation hath wrought — 

Hath wrought he from fathomless soul-depths his own, 
with touches artistic that leave their immortal impress 
but in beauty and color-sculptur'd thought ! 

The face is Raphaelistic and Madonna-like in its dreamy 
and sweet-pathetic beauty ; with its dreamful blue- 
eyes, tender dimpling chin, and kiss-provoking mouth, 

(An aesthetic-rose blooming rare and uncrush'd in the 
garden of glories that blossom unfading neath the 
glow of his art's balmy South,) — 

With the warm light fallmg so glowful and rippling like 
the sunrise-of-summer gilding the long browny curls 
that halo her like a saint, 

Then, the shadowy folds of the drapery and laces ethe- 
real there, all attesting the tender and infinite touch 
of that marvellous master-hand casting Im^nortals in 
paint ! 

There's the foliage luxuriant o'erhanging in shadeful 
florescence, — the ivies all drooping with the wax'n 
mesembryanthemums dripping all dew-glow'd and 
fresh 



92 VALKYKIA. 

From the vase so artistically fluted that no handling of 
Envy, no carping of Critic its flawless Florentine 
beauty can crush, or its eloquent praises can hush ! 

A tastefully-arrang'd basket of daises, feathery ferns, 
with roses and blossoming wild-blue-eyed beauties, 
dares to rival the moss-rose-buds just falling from the 
perfectly infantile hand, — 

Fair and infinite as the visions that rise like the castles-of- 
cloudland, or the fancies that flow to the waving of a 
fairy's intangible wand ! 

But ah ! that marble hall I 'I dream'd I dwelt in mar- 
ble halls ! ' a gleam of artistic glory floods the per- 
fectly executed tesselated floor, 

With all the delicate veinings of the marble intricate 
and lovely as if Nature herself had pencilled them 
there, while Genius flung wide, to welcome Art, her 
pearl-panel'd door. 

There's a broad park beyond, luxuriant in tropical shrub- 
ery, rising boldly above the massive-wrought balus- 
trade, — and is Nature in an ample light — 

All her tender tintings glowing with that delicacy of 
life that defies description here, and bears immortal 
blooms exempt from mortal blight ! 

While the dreamlike floating clouds are heavenly in their 
hues, drifting o'er the loveliest landscape back-ground, 
flush'd with the freshness and fullness of luxuriant 
life, 

Combin'd with the aesthetic touch of high art, that lifts 
her Koh-i-Noor-crown far above the mutilating multi- 
tudes .surging below in maddened struggles of strife. 



VALKYR I A. 93 



But the Peerless of the Place — the god of the Studio, 
is the infantile son of the artist — a sweetly poetic- 
nam'd Ossian — a veritable Cupid all dimpled in 
charm, — 

The sweet, earnest child-face so expression-full of a sad 
artist-soul, the sun-beam hair clustering about the 
white brow, so goldenly warm, 

The tender dimpHng of chin — and of fingers, — curling 
lips sweet and poetic as a rose-bud, and intense azure- 
eyes that look one's soul through; 

While the perfect anatomy of the symmetrical Cupid- 
limbs, and the tiny nude foot half-immers'd in a basin 
of water, through 

Which the flesh gleams still as sculptur'd marble, yet 
with wonderful animation — telling in eloquence mute 
the masterful hand that had wrought them, — 

A dark green curtain flowing down in the most artistic 
folds, forms a background, with a fleck of etherial 
cloudlet, throwing the lovely child-figure into beautiful 
relief: 

One has only to look, to see the glowing artist-soul of the 
grand artist-father, in the dreamy look intense, of this 
darling budding Laurel-Leaf ! — 

This sweet true Child of Art, who scarce hath told his 
tripple summers, sketches boldly from nature, and his 
own original conceptions. 



94 VALKYRIA. 

Seeing an object novel to his childish comprehensions, 
knowing neither its name, or its use, he describes it to 
his parents by drawing it, — (one of Genius' rare excep- 
tions!) 



And yet the gifted owner of this treasure-house of Art- 
glory, in this day of unappreciative Shoddyism, hasn't 
all that he should of an immortal name, 

Simply because he is too grand of spirit to pander to ye 
Dukes of the Dime, too proud and manfully modest to 
employ gas to illumiiiate, and trumpeters to herald, 
his fame ! 

There is no Emperor to load him with honors and re- 
wards, as Charles V. did Titian : Too true, it, alas ! 
that Genius neglected cries out in her want, while 
Ignorance is ermin'd and crown'd ! — 

Goes worthy but wistful by the way all the Beautiful go 
— yet yearning for sympathy sweetly aesthetic — seek- 
ing love's treasure in prodigal measure, where only 
pale mockeries are found. 

But untiring, with /^//A in fulfilment, as the years drift 
him by, he dips his inimitable brush enchanted of dia- 
mondM genius, 

Deep in the gold-hght of Art, deep in the flower-glow- 
ing mystical heart of God's Beautiful, and from the 
infinitely fathomless depths of that Genius, 

Wooes he those lovely creations to his imperishable can- 
vas, haloing his life with the radiance rare of unfading 
Art-glory, 



VALKYR! A. 95 

That ere long shall burst in bewilderment of beauty up- 
on the soul of a world then delighting to honor Art's 
Ideals enwreath'd with the fame of his tender life- 
story ! 

Ah ! sad, as 'tis trtie^ that ev'ry life deified with genius, 
mostly for that part, goes longing through life for 
that sympathy and understanding, which rarely they 
win — or win never ! 

Yet — oh ! Man of Dreams! Anointed of Artists, keep 
thy pure purpose set sternly toward your art's holy 
ideal, and win all you wish by sacred endeavor. 
• For though there may be wanting in hfe's prosy realities, 
that unattainable, impossible true, which your great 
soul is so wistfully yearning for, 

There is that which is greater, the rare realities that 
Jean Paul yearn'd for in his dreaming, the embodied 
dreams that your own spirit 's burning for — 

Glorified and embodied Ideals that glow with deathless 
beauty in the veil'd studio of your Correggio in his 
dawn-full spirit-world of the gold'n Over-There : 
All, and more than all you are wistful of awaits you with 
jewelled crown and imperishable reward, with treasure 
no mortal hath seen, for life's Workers who hallow 
their work with faith, and with pray'r ! 
For the God of Infinity and Glorified Love, crowns no 
soul here with the Glory of Genius, but unto some 
holiest purpose that ultimate grows into graces super- 
nal ; 
And the Faithful who unto that Purpose have lovingly 



96 VALKYRIA. 

wrought, shall rapturously gather reward, and, crown'd 
with laurels unfading, shall Live in the glow of His 
Beautiful Eternal !" 



While Musa had talk'd on of Art and its Workers — and 
her fond mother loving had listen'd, — the Twilight 
had silently slipt into evening 

And Evening, in love with the Night, had wrought her 
a coronet of stars and crowning her Queen of the 
Continent, on her fair brow its saintliest kisses were 
leaving. 

Suddenly, just as a joy, a grief, or surprise, fiash'd a 
hint in the light of the tender grey eyes, and the hands 
that had sooth'd all her life, held a late notelet before 
her ; 

"'In search of the Beautipil^ eh?" the mother was 
smiling the query — '' you foiuid it, my sweet one, I'm 
sure : but see ! I've other here for you ! " and the thrill 
oi surprise fiash'd o'er her 

As she look'd at the creme-tinted billet : unfolding like 
a wide-open rose, a cloth-of-gold-petal'd and perfum'd 
from stamen to stem. 

The dusky eyes lost all their dream-glow sudden as flash- 
ing of flame when summer clouds are cleft by still 
lightning, and their light was the glow of an Orient 
gem ! 

A picture fell out — sliding from the folds, just as a 
friend of mood merry might slip of a sudden from a 
hedge or a hiding to startle with sweetest surprise. 



VALKYRIA.. 97 

But lo ! 'twas that of a stranger — a brave handsome 
face, wide-open and stamp'd with the signet of soul \ 
— and Musa in a moment was dreaming, iihat color, 
perchance, were the eyes ? 

But the brow was the Throne of high Thought, and that 
well sufficed her (this girl of fastidious tastes), for 
violet, for black eyes, for grey, or for brown ; 

(And with a serio-comic air, with a dignified bow that 
provok'd a gay laugh from " tna merCy' she paid her 
devoir to the stranger), for that TJioiight-sealy to her 
was credential for a Crown ! 

The reading of the /^<:^, as oi wording, was rapid by the 
light of those eyes, and the smile that was curling the 
sensitive lips, told her mother that Musa was pleas'd ; 

And the half-pain or pique that had pierced the proud 
heart through the waiting of months to know the fate 
of her flowers, at last with proud praises was appeas'd. 

(For, seiz'd with desire to test her own powers, or to win 
a new proof of her genius, Musa had ventur'd to launch 
on the literary high-tide of Northland, her flow'r-deck'd 
boatlet, — 

Had sent to this stranger, a Reviewer renown'd, a bouquet 
of fresh Parma Violets, pale pansies enwrought of 
fond poesie ; — and received now reward of rare merit 
— assurances sweet, in this notelet. — 



For her pansies had blossom'd, though late, to shed their 
rare fragrance on the world ; they were publish'd, and 



98 VALKYR I A. 

Musa was honor'd to see them enflushing like a Jieur 
de lis the front of his " Banner " : 

For a copy in print the biUethdid brought for companion, 
and the fair Southland author could divine their esti- 
mate of her art-work, as her waiflet confirm'd in this 
royal manner.) 

The itotelet ' s peffiimd ? Aye ! sweet with the *' subtile 
aroma of genu ls ! " and Musa's fine senses were quick 
to detect it, — inhaling its fragrance delighted, — 

As proudly she gather'd the laurels that unto her crown- 
ing it yielded, and then with the zest of a soldier, seiz'd 
the challenge of contest it so archly invited. 

She longed to commune with the gifted: she'd tourney 
with the tender of thought, and cross swords with the 
brave who'd dare to declare an opinion — 

She would take up the gauntlet, and gird on her jewell'd 
Excalibur to do battle with this Northland Apollo, and 
see who should win the diamonded dominion ,-* — 

Ay — (if ma mere, and good Dr. Royal thought pnident), 
she would write him a thank — dare a girlish reply : 
refitted correspondence was rare, — The fathom-line of 
Thought she would drop to the Depth of his Power — 

(Interwoven with broidering of badinage and woofings 
of wit,) — diving thus for the pearls the costlier rubies 
migJitfind, then like a Mary would sit at the feet of 
her faith's new redeemer, learning wisdom in wealth 
of its dower. 

'Twould be but an innocent incentive, — Purity trustful 
of Valor, — or Genius unto Genius its ripe gold'n 
sheaflets would bring, a something to look for, to 
strive for, and win, — 



VALKYR I A. 99 

A refin'd recreation, — or charm-work to chase away 
care when poesie and practice grew palHng — when 
headaches and heartaches were synonymous, and hope 
deferred yielded no prizes to win, 

And the aesthetic spirit is wistful of something to an- 
swer with Ideal, while fate is denying the soul its 
cherish'd and deified Real! and Matter-of-Fact is 
crushing the roses of Fancy, 

And the rare golden wine that sparklingly beaded the 
jewelled chalice of Hope, was fragrant with promise 
as the visions that dawn o'er the dreamings of roseate 
infancy. 

"Singular, singular!" half-aloud murmur'd this Musa, 
as if thought over thought like the foldings of rose- 
leaves were pressing for open expression, — 

" Surely it savors of Blackstone ! ' Attorney-at-Law,' — 
' German Consultations,' enwreathing the poetic name 

'Willis ,' christening this limb of the Legale a 

popular profession I 

Ah! an author, reviewer, and barrister? triple-crowned, 
bright, and bejewelled, cleaving his way to the stars. 
— with now an original, then a brilliant critique of new 
works, or an exhaustive judicial research or lengthy 
debate of the Law% — 

(While perchance before him is glitt'ring ever the goal 
of an ardent ambition — the royal Crown judicially 
jewell'd of Chief-Justiceship, — ) Grant, O, ye Powers I 
that a closer communion discover no flaw 

In this character so seemingly unexc-eptionable now, of 



loo VALKYRIA. 

laurels judicial and literary twining their bright im- 
mortelles in a coronal crowning his grand *. . . Thau- 
maturgic brow of Thought.' 

With fascinating transition, sudden as sweet, see how 
he .... ' heaps the altars with gifts,' .... from the 
royalties recounted, to the metrical flowing of some 
tender translation of the Classics enwrought ! 

Hear him tell his invaluable friendship for us } '^ I have 

ever had a warm heart for the Southern people 

/;/ my years of Editor ial work, I have ever extended 
a brotherly hand 

To the brave hearts of the South. I hope Southern ge- 
nius will come to the fore and dazzle the world ! '■' 
What a spirit of grandeur ! what a hope for the future 
of our beautiful land ! 

List ! — ah, the noble ! — ■" You have excellent news- 
papers ; you should have peerless magazines, and a 
literature that would cast into the shade the cold and 
barren literature of New England ; 

Your sunny clime, your Jieroic deeds, your fervid imagi- 
nations and warm hearts, should supply that which is 
wanting in the less fervid soul, born of the calmery 
colder clime of our Northland!' 

Remember, via mh'e, the dainty Flora-Bells I culled 
t)f my fancy (exclusively) for him, and sent them long 
after the Violets, to chime the triumphant unfurling 
of his triple starred " Banner ? " 

Then wist thou, my bonny belov'd, the sweetness their 
fragrance exhaled o'er his soul, or the rare dolcemente 
their swaying aw^oke in the tenderest manner? 



VALKYR lA. loi 

Hark, to the echoes ! .... " Fair Southland 
Musa (for fair thou must be, though unseen). Your 
fervid and comphmentary notelet, as well as your 
charming poemUy ' Flora-Bells,' receiv'd not many 
days ago. 

I have read the poem v^ith critical care, and must 
say I am pleas'd v^ith its beauty. Without wishing to 
flatter you — we knightly sons of Adam are designated 
great flatt'rers (you know) 

Among the fair daughters of Eve (to appropriate your 
own vivid figure), — I say it contains many meritorious 
points. The metre is pleasing to the ear, the figures 
are exquisitely conceived, 

The language is pure, and the sentiment excellent, 
crowning a name that deathless shall be, with 
flowers fragrant and fadeless of the Daphne-odora 
enwreathed. 

Bonnily on the breeze that flutters the ' Banner,' it 
shall wave, while copies as compliment I'll waft thee 
with reward of crown-praises ; 

For royally. Muse, God has lit up your soul, and your 
genius hath blossomed richly and rare into flowers 
of poesie pure as the whiteness that rays the gold 
disks of the daisies ! 

You, commendably, ask'd the unbias'd opinion of a 
critic, a stranger, whose heart thrills not with the 
preferences partial to a personal friend, regarding the 
merit of them. 

Your sweet Flora-Bells, which / believe to be of 
sufficient merit to meet the eye of the critic you adopt 



I02 VALKYRIA, 

as your ' Patron-Sa i nt,' as it were. Fear not : Savans 
will class \\. pure gem ! '' 



Then followed advices at length, manly and courageously 
directing the way that leads onward and upward to 
the Heights where glitters the goal of ambition ; 

And ventur'd at last to appoint her a subject — Luna- 
RIA — to crown with the stars of her genius, the 
while she might gather rare flowers to garland her 
poesie^s mission ; 

Thus gallantly closing the rose-leafed billet that so 
sweetly perfumed all the Present, enfolding the germ 
of rare promise that hope would expand into florals 
of a radiant reality, 

As encouraging assurances coming from the gifted and 
great, was incentive as sweet as genius could ask for, 
while it flows to fulfilment of faith's ideality. 

'' You will pardon my particular interest in your behalf, 
being a stranger, Muse ? Your lines have mov'd my 
thoughts more than you can divine, 

And if I'm indiscreet in return, you'll forgive, as hope 
we to be all forgiv'n } and in all that I may do to aid 
you, to write your proud name among the stars, I am 
thine! 

At a time more propitious I hope to commence where 
I left off", when I bespeak from you and your friends 
the aid of your genius — as, I repeat, God has lit tip 
your soul. 

Send me your photo, if not asking too much "i that a 



VALKYR /A. 103 

wish be unto me gratified while truth lifts the veil 
that covers the face my soul 's so wistful of seeing 
that fancy hath lost her control." 



" My photo ? " Musa conclusively queried. " What could 
he want with a pair of earnest midnight eyes wist- 
ful in the fitful light of a brok'n dream ? or the sensi- 
tive lips ever curling with smiles or with tears .'*"... 

For Musa but late, then, had fought a dread battle with 
Death and hard-won, had conquer'd disease at the cost 
of her doctor's learn'd skill and mother-love watchful 
beside her in tears ; 

And the loss of her roses, and roundness, precluding 
the possibility of a ''sitting" just now; — and the 
likeness of old, three years ago crown'd, this 
fastidious girl suffic'd not; 

For a coiffure, or corsage grown passe was out of the 
question to send to this Northland Apollo ; hence, 
he never may know the why the requested rctratto in 
answer came not. 



Mimosa-hearted Musa of the sunny-souled South! Lau- 
rel crown'd Willis, an Apollo of the calm-eyed 
brave-hearted North ! And thus, beneath the classic 
shades of posies proudest Parnassus 

Their souls hath congenially met, and the joy that thrill'd 
through their greeting was white with purity and sweet 
as the swaying of the Nymphaea-lotus, — for 'twas 



104 VALKYR I A, 

Genms enamor'd of Genius, alike the enamor'd Nar- 
cissus ! — 

(Was ever there Laurel beneath whose proud glow no 
budlet of Myrtle its fragrance dare blow?) How 
many a Cophetua-soul'd King hath turn'd from the 
rose- white fascination of some royal Victofia-regia 
whose homage a world delighteth to do ; 

Proudly to crown as his peeress some sweet modest 
maiden Mignonette, whose fragrance exhaling only for 
its King, should embalm and perfume all his life, 
hallow'd with its purity so peerless and true! 



With a sweet Madonna-look of intense sincerity, Musa 
was saying: — " O, belov'd mother! If only God would 
anoint inc for the work ? If Wisdom Infinite might 
fiozv to my pen as it flow d once to Solomon s prayr ? — 

While I take up my cross bravely to bear it and upward 
to the Heights Lunaria-croyNn d, where Immortality 
glows in the Light of God's smile, supremely approved 
and unfadingly fair ! — 

The7i — beloved one, might I hope, joyfully at last, to re- 
store you — (jwcet dream of my life) — to the comfort 
and happiness that were yours, ere Fortune had fled 
us, or Hope had deceiv'd us ! 

Ere the royality of Love close wedded to wealth that 
enwrought the proud Crest of our House had faded : — 
or our life's rosy morn had burn'd into noon, and the 
noon had gone down in the night when Death with 
his scythe had bereav'd us. 



VALKYRIA. 105 

" Oh ! if I might win ! what shotdd not be yours, that 
my love coicld avail you I " exclaimed the sweetly un- 
selfish, fond Musa, with tears half unshed trembling 
like faceted diamonds in the beautiful eyes, — 

As the mother-arms lovingly enclasp'd her, baptizing her 
mutely with love's fondest kisses, '' Not for me, but 
yourself m^ precious one, I would that you win the 
proud gain, and the glory of a fame that never dies I 

And God will yet give you the Crown, He will lead you 
to the light, if sincere you ever shall be to deserve it ! 
Christ's love, my child, can render you worthy, and 
tJius anointed and Jiallow d you ever shall win /" 

And thus enfolded in love's tender arms, with the light 
of sweet hope in their hearts, these lone remaining two 
and devoted, of a once lordly house and long line, sat 
crown'd with the stars of the ev'ning, rich in the royal- 
ty of their love, as though no misfortune nor bereave- 
ment had been ! 

For, pathetic truth to tell, a Fortune that's fickle had 
dealt rather cruel with Musa and mother, — and the 
Reaper had gathered their lov'd ones, 'till — (to endea- 
vor and fail, or do battle and triumph) only they two 
had been left ; 

As through the decline of their joys — a-down the long 
scale of their sorrows — athwart the dim vale of their 
tears baptizing the flight of the years, — of friends, or 
affluence, of all save each other and God's love berefty 

While — (how rarely a hero. with heel or with helmet 
invulnerable, springs up to do battle for Innocence 
disrobed of her Dividends I) nor knight — nor yet 
champion now bravely defended — 



io6 VALKYRIA. 

But only their powerful pride, and irreproachable purity 
of life and of purpose did for them valiant battle, as 
with trophies that richly begarland'd their Arches de 
Triomphe, they'd bravely from the plush-tufted, ormolu' d 
mansion, to a rose-crown'd Cottage descended. 

In the hush of the Cottage boudoir — by the still steady 
glow of an ''astral," and the breath of the flowers ex- 
haling sweet dreams of the tropics, — while the pic- 
tures were smiling their silent approval, 

A fair en-flush'd face, with its deep Minerva-look and 
Venus-soul, was bending earnest eyes upon the mute 
pictur'd features of a pair of most perfect card-photos, 
(an open album nearby attesting one fair face the less ^ 
by removal. 

The vignettes were faces of Musa, and her new gifted 
friend — the famed Willis : — his, a proud, open face, 
bespeaking a brave, tender heart : hers — of a passion- 
flower soul — triste and wistful, and full of purity peer- 
less and fragrant as a flow'r ! — 

And while the infantile contour was tender and touching 
with a sweetness of expression that won you, — still 
there was that which thrill'd deeper, in the something 
that whisper'd oi power ! 

Holding them close — as comparing — a rich-red ottar-: 
hearted rose sudden had fallen from the perfumed 
and crimped dusky tresses of her hair, thrusting its 
beauty, like a rival, between them ; 

As if it would cleave them apart, and woo them to trust 
but its own crimson heart, or like a fond friend with 



VALKYRIA. 107 

caution caressing, would warn them — " O ! trust not 
the charm of a closer communion ; hearts may ojfef 
rare gifts to find no returniftg I {hom that saddest of 
fates would I screen them.) 

' Only a rose is between its / ' — I ween you are thinking 
fair lady, and your pure heart is dreaming, perchance 
— * Why not brush the blushing petals, that thrust all 
their sweetness between us, away — 

And lay my wistful face, trustful and endearing against 
the manly heart that's heaving its fount encrimson'd 
of truth against the fond shores of love's sweetness, 
and rest me at last in the dawn of a day 

That shall goldenly glide on forever, while with hopes 
all fulfilled and joy complete I may quaff e'er the cup 
of the nectarin'd reality my soul is so wistful of now ? ' 

Ah ! sweet lady, your faiths may be pure as the petals of 
those white-hearted lilies that waxenly sculpture the 
vase there, — and the laurels the proudest whose 
glory begirts how his brow, — 

Yet the sweet myrtles your fancy now twineth with the 
daphnes that dewily adorn thy own brow, may wither 
in the breath of a scorn — or pining for the touch of 
tender hands, grow sadder than thy young life is now, 
though breav'd — (still 'tis brighten'd with hope)." 

Now Musa was kissing the rose 'till she crush'd it, — 
now she was laughing at the winsome wiseacre, at 
such a wee rose-lipp'd prattler, — and then she re- 
plac'd her own picture in the album whose gift-clasp'd 
lids awaited wide ope'. 



io8 VALKYRIA 

" O you prating ' old fogy ' of a rose ! you've broken 
your own heart upon me, and I've drank all the sweet- 
ness of your soul, and given you kisses for kisses ; and 
yet you would have me the rest of the world ever 
doubting, 

As even ma mh'e, and our dear Doctor too, I ween, 
v^ould endorse you ! Ah, well ! yott all three are older, 
tried friends and tnce, and may-be no treasure I'll lose 
by some little prudent redoubting : — 

Yet, looking up to that face so grand and august in 
in the glow of its laurels, vi^hy may I not covet his 
praises, and win them ? Think you. Rose, that Fame 
is yet truer than Love in its troth-plight ? — 

And if I should win, and, fairest, a fame-bride be 
crown'd, would the queen of such a high diamondM 
thron-e, with the realm of a World to do homage, be 
the happier if Love took his flight ? 

Very well : — I can wait, and time will discov^* the se- 
crets now hidden : I'll toil, if Toil at last takes the 
Triumph, and when on the Heights I am thron'd, and 
hold the fame-sceptre serene, — 

Far up in the cloud-land so cold that no flower can 
brook its chill breath, and a white statue marks the 
place of Love's early death, — I'll ask my heart, then^ 
if /, Crowned, am happier than the queen of a coty 
far below in the roses, I had seen ? 

And — then if I find, all too late, that I mistook the 
true way, and won the lesser prize, wilt thou, too, oh \ 
Rose, turning with thy tenderest touches 'till life's 
latest breath, tauntingly tell me — Too late! ah, too 
late ! ' 



VALKYRIA. 109 

Ay ! 't would be but the way of the world that would lead 
us, and turn us from the true, when we win not the 
Which we have wrought for, — to falsely abandon us 
to the desolate doom of such a dread fate ! 

Yet withal — there is hope of Hereafter ; Somewhere, I 
may meet my Apollo, a-down the sweet vales amaran- 
thine that bloom all along the bright shores of that 
beautiful Forever, 

And then, I may tell him — he then may understand how 
Souls, Here, may revrence each other, without the court- 
ly clasping of hands ; and how he had help'd me win 
something, — (though love I had lost, in Ambition's 
endeavor.) " 

Then soon in the depths of downy white pillows that ca- 
ressed the flush'd cheeks, the dusky eyes were closing 
in dreams — dreams of homages hallow'd by love — 
now of the glory that glows but in fame, — 

Now to the bridal kneeling with Love at the flower- 
crown'd altar of Hymen to receive the benediction that 
blesses a life — or now an undemonstrative proud 
peeress she sees herself crown'd only with the laurels 
of an undying name. 



And yet the fair sleeper dreams on, drifting far out in 
the future unfolding its treasures in slumber : — but 
the fond heart in its throbbing knowethnot the destiny 
awaiting her — 

Whether a bride to the bridal, happy to the last, or soul- 
crush'd shoulJ be, — or whether a sacrifice to Fame,, 
though unwreath'd with its glory! — whether her soul 



o VALKYRIA. 

rare nectars might quaff it of joy, or bitterest draughts 
of aloes-and-myrrh ? 



The dawn of another glad day was cleft by the sunlight 
of morn, gilding the hill-tops as if the light of God's 
smile was upon them, and the subtle perfumes of the 
spring-time the sensitive spirit was swaying: — 

And thrill'd with the flush of sweet Promise in the royal- 
ties richly unfolding, while the roseate glowing of hope's 
fairest and fondest unfalt'ring, Musa in her merriest 
mood, wrote to him, saying : — 



" Your complimentary letter, starward-lifting, 

with its proud assurances of some unconscious Power 
which hath won your favor, has drifted to me like a 
fadeless leaflet of Daphne's deathless tree. 

And shall be cherished pridefully the brightest Kor-i- 
Noor that gleams within my crown, — pridefully the 
queenhest coronal that fame may yet, or time, or trea- 
sure bring me ! 

Sweet as the crushing of cassia-buds was the approval 
it wafted, — like an imperial Martagon-lily with its 
stamens all steeped in ottar-immortal of praise ! 

So sweet, so rare is the impearling-of-praise that weighs 
a half-carat of truth ! — so priceless the pearls that 
Genius to Merit doth plight, (and rarely) in the false- 
hearted "Vanity Fair" of these days. 

No man whose escutcheon is spotless, on whom Honor 
hath set her royal signet to show the World a man, — 



VALKYRIA. . Ill 

(or is heir to the Crown Imperial which novv^ begirts 
the brow of that Ulemd whose life 's Lunaria- 
wroiight), — 

Could feel even one impelling thought of that littleness 
of spirit which prompts one to deceive a stranger, or 
to offer tempting morceaux of flattery, where fruit rare- 
ly-ripen'd in the golden alchjemy of Truth, was sought 

By one who still has faith that Reality rich-centred, is 
waiting with reward, Somewhere ! Nay ! although an 
exquisitely sensitive heart Mimosa-fibred, whispers 
gently, "gardez! brave h^art," 

I feel you do not bear me ** water in one hand, and hos- 
tile fire in the other ! " The learned barrister and dis- 
tinguish' d litterateur to whom I now have the honor 
of writing, — (as a gift of Genius to Art, 

And who bids a rare rival of my much revered Ruskin, 
as a reviewer,) rises in his critique sublime above the 
mere panegyrist who stoops to kiss the sandals of pet- 
ty Popularity ! 

The keen, trenchant, tender, ghttering Barnave-spirit 
pervading his reviews of others — (which long ago 
I read) — bold " decisions " of he who now so bravely 
tenders me a helping-hand from far-off Pennsylvania's 
pale-hued hills and vales of lovely verity, 

And plights his faith unto our semi-tropic passion- 
flower Southern hearts : — hath in it none of the old 
Roman antiquity that " . . . . conceals daggers in 
baskets of fruit in order to assassinate each other at 
their leisure." 



112 - VALKYR I A. 

I fancied I should rather Hke a sabre-stroke from that 
master-hand ; but the fairy-wand that falls so gently, so 
approvingly, so encouragingly upon me, I ween, is 
sweeter far, than the sev'ring flash of your jewell'd 
Excalibur, at measure! 

For, — truth confessed of all, so sweet is pansy-hearted 
Praise — that, *'as we kiss the child that does the task 
assigned it well," so seems your eulogy of flora- 
bells, unto a wistful heart — 

Wistful and impassioned only for laurels that bear the 
divine impress, or peerless proof of soul that bath 
wrousfht with Schiller in .... '* Das Ideal und das 
Leben !".... and left its trace upon the statues 
that golden with the glow of Art ! 

No doubt you'll think me " muchly '' flatter'd. Sir, for 
having drank the tempting chalice you held a-foam 
with the wine of gladness, the which hath left me in a 
sweet intoxication } But lo ! — 

Life hath so many Gethsemanes where we pray, " O 
my Father^ if it be possible, let this atp pass from 
me;'' .... so many Actiums to act ! so many Rubi- 
cons to cross, so many Scyllas and Charybdis to dash 
the heart in pieces, while the distant beacons glow I 

So many anguish'd hours wherein the brightest, holie; t 

of life's loves flow out in soul-encrimson'd tears ! 

And so few angels to uplift and strengthen, so few 

beautiful Redeemers 
Of lost faiths, so few brave hands charity-bejewell'd and 

upward-bearing; or yet enci cling arms of safety that 



VALKYR J A. 113 

swim us swiftly shoreward, — so few star-eyed Hopes 
that faithful lift us up when fainting 'neath our cross, 
and when Despair would slay life's sweetest Dream- 
ers, — 

That we are fain to take the friendly hand that grasps 
us, helpful, and points or leads the way to the Happy- 
Havens of Safety and Success ! TJien, here's a hand 
that holds no kalmia-sheaves of treachery, but wheat- 
lets rich of truth, 

And a passion-flower heart that cries across the Helles- 
pont of Distance intervening, — '^ Tiens ta foi !'' — 
ay, keep thy faith of friendship pure and sweet as the 
Arabian-jessamine-dreams that pulse their precious 
perfumes through the rosy morn of youth ! 

You so gallantly have shown the way by which I may 
paddle my little Shallop across the Water, that I 
scarce can find sufficient words to thank you. You 
wish me '' bon voyogc!'' Suppose, with one fell stroke 
royal Ruskin should slay me ? 

Taine tells us, that *'.... stibtile and i^npassioned 
painters^ .... wield their art with some grand mo- 
tive ; . . . . " then one motive grand would be at last 
deservedly to wear the rubies Ruskin has to give ; 
and to win anew, and worthily to wear the blume-iwW 
famelet with which so lately Thou hast crown' d me. 

Under your benign patronage, thou ApoUo-of-the-North, 
what may I not win } My future (literarily) opens on a 
rosy vista azure-arch'd and star-fring'd, while argent- 
lined are all the clouds that so suddenly have chang'd 
all coiileur de rose. 



114 VALKYR I A, 

Authorship, with its royalties and grand possibilities, 
has now a sweeter charm, as ^r^VZ-eyed carmine-finger'd 
Hope smilingly beckons me onward, to the gaol of re- 
ward yet the rarest, a-gleam with its radiant glows ! 

And with my ardent love of the aesthetic, the divine long- 
ing for the "utterly deepest bottom," that set its seal 
upon the imperial brow of a Goethe^ shall strengthen 
me in my struggle "from possibility to reality! " 

I have suffered much (Mimosa-souled, I could hope not 
to escape), but, surely, do " we learn by what we 
sujfer:'' and though ruggedly we climb the rough- 
hewn Real, still there's many a happy heart-throb 
thrill'd through life's Ideality. 

You, having "thrown me down the gauntlet," as it were, 
rev'rently do I take it up, and not without much mis- 
giving; your subject, Lunaria, honor-emblem'd, is 
rather difficult of poetic-conception (how intricate 
the gold'n-mystic-meshes of poesie that crown it !) 

Unless I make an epi-dramatic effort, requiring space 
and action, (you would have me cut concise and frame 
it in the "Constitution," or the prouder "Temple 
Bar!"), and, then, the tragic muse, or di^ainatiLrgie^ 
doth not, I think, possess me; so that e'en the great 
Ulemd might proudly feel, of it ? 

But with prayerful heart, and faith in art, I'll try ; a very 
dear friend, a very learn'd and eminent physician ; 
(whose honor to and heroic love of his country, the- 
gold of Mammon could not buy, and whose impas- 



VALKYEIA. I [5 

sion'd Southern heart throbs its crimson spray against 
Ufe's shores of Truth, 

A fount unfaihng of fidelity ! ) has given me some timely 
hints of that grand Ulemd, which I'll weave with 
yours, and see what diZdXedi-Ideals I can woo us from 
the " Mothers " (Goethe), to twine about the laurel- 
foliag'd facts that tell his honored Reals wedded unto 
Truth ; 

And if, after having wrought with faith, I find success, I 
will (with your pernwssion ? ) send it forth for your 
perusal, abiding, then, your judgment ; which, if your 
favor wins, may favoring breezes waft it o'er the sea. 

Where, if won, the kiss of greeting of those I covet there, 
may Time, that thrills it quick]y,white-sairdand rosy- 
deck'd, wait those costly kisses swiftly back, with 
freight of praises proudly, — and an unclaim'd Kor-i- 
Noor to gem a crown for me ? 



My " photo ? " 1 fully appreciate the delicate compliment : 
I \\o\d. yours — the photo or carte-de-visite, you sent, as 
a royal gift: — but as for 7nme — '' voila unp autre 
chose ! " I venture however, to send you a boutonnikre 
of violets, a waft of Southern perfume, 

Which you may find an agreeable substitution for the 
"photo" which you so gallantly besought. May the 
violets prattle tender thoughts of Southern friends, 
weave you sweetest dreamings of our sunny clime, 
and lisp, that — '' I will think of it," the while 
I dream of Ulemd enwreath'd with fresh Lunaria- 
bloom ! 



ii6 VALKYR JA. 

I wish you — sincerely, unprecedented success with your 
matchless " New Book" — and that -it may prove an 
exhaustless ''Bonanza" of wealth to its grand, gifted 
author ! May laurels alike those enwreathing the 
brow of the Apollo Belvedere, blossom perennial 
'round thy brow, 

And all the fond hopes of ambition — in happy fulfil- 
ment, eager to answer your calling, rush to meet you 

• — with honors replete you, and yield you the crowns 
of which my spirit is so wistfujly waiting for now ! 

If, in enthusiasm, I have broken my box of precious 
ointment, anointing the head of a stranger too lavish- 
ly ; remember that the sweetest spiceries sigh through 
sandal-wood dells, and are won of islets of bloom, zon'd 
by empurpled seas ; — 

That the star-enamor'd jasmine, and passionate Ihlang- 
Ihlangs all swing their vesper censers of sweetness 
through the South, where hearts throb warmest, souls 
are deepest, and hands with welcome whitest fill'd with 
gifts of tropic-hearted Cereus ; 

So, with sincere assurance ever, of my high apprecia- 
tion of the kindly interest you manifest in me — a 
stranger — in the hopes and aspirations that, alluring, 
lead far on and up to Heights where Crowns are, 
(awaiting yet to throne or yet disdainfully refuse her), 

And plighting tithes of all my treasure, and laureletts 
of all the crowns I win — (more befitting brows like 
thine), — I promise that no other praise shall woo me 
to forget thee, — as in my ardent addio, I have the 
honor, Sir, to be, gratefully — Mimosa - Musa." 



VALKYRIA, 117 



October: — 

, " O golden 

October, with memories folden 

As many as stars that are gleaming 

Through night on your tenderest dreaming." 

O gorgeous, historic October of '80! no other October 
now past, or to come, can chronicle the glory 

That worthily is wreathing thy brow — or Immortality 
shall tell of thy story ! 

Shine out — and goldenly, gilding the hill-tops and bronz- 
ing the wolds with thy wonderful splendor, O Sun ! 

And open the wealth of thy treasures, O Autumn, in 
gorgeous Georgian glory, as to amber and crimson 
and gold thy robings of emerald turn ! 

Golden ye Cereals to harvesting ! and ye tropical fruits 
all the rarest — ripen to richness thy clusters, all, 
crushing the best 

In chalices of crystal, and bowls of ambrosia heaped for 
"ye gods^' who are coming to the Feast ! 

Fill the goblet to o'erflowing, — and kill the "fatted calf," 

for our bonny Blue Brothers who hasten to greet us! 
Send forth embassadors laden with gifts to their welcome 

as speed they fraternal to meet us : 
And, rising to the height of thy honor, O Southland, 

reveal them thy secret of sweetness^ while with 

hearts — as with hands 



Il8 VALKYRIA. 

We welcome our Brothers — from pinnacled palace to 
ivy-thatched cot, to our fondest and fairest of lands ! 

Atlanta ! O beautiful, but erstwhile City besieged ! 

draw up the portcullis ! fling wide your welcome gates ! 
For the royal entry of the guests you have bidden, and 

for which your heartiest hospitality awaits ! 
No need we of sentry, rampart, or cannon, (save but to 

fire salute as the militaire pageant enters) 
Or sentinel's haply by Peace and Good-Will on the 

towers, while the watchword is " Welcome / " to all our 

fair city en-centres ! 

As royal Pages of the People in favors of red — white — 
and blue, (that no other Peeress supplant her,) — 

Her honors to do, stand in waiting, to usher her guests 
to the Throne-Room of Southland's Queen City, 
Atlanta ! 



Gorgeous in bunting — gay banner and flag, festooning 
the archways and floating the Nation's proud colors 

From turret, and tower, pinnacle of palaces proud, or 
window of cottage (all eager to render their homage, 
or honors :) 

A City of Colors ! Decorations as gay as if April had 
suddenly burst into bloom ! — 

And then as Night's curtains clos'd down gleam'd Illu- 
mination grand, in simultaneous flashing of Light 
from the Gloom 1 



valb:yria. 119 

A beautiful City is buyning — like an opal in setting 
of gold! — burning with bonfires — flaming from can- 
dle to costly candelabra a-light'ning, 

While thousands of hearts that beat happy and high, 
are gladden'd with the flushing of hopes that are 
bright'ning ! 



" See ! delighted and elated, 

We ourselves have decorated, 

With our golden crowns have crowned us, 

With our spangled girdles bound us, 

Chains and jewels hung around us ! " 

The Feast is not lordly enough ? True, we have no cost- 
ly Cleopatra-pearls todisolve in the wine, — nor dainty 
Delmonico-dishes to serve 

V\I\\h fricasee d French viands, and cxo^n^ oi Charlotte- 
Russe on salvers of gold richly — and royal as we 
know they deserve : — 

But the " Barbecue " is brown — crisp are the pastries 
with Constance, — and the bread is white with the 
faith of fraternity ! 

And the pure Thea-Nectar and Mocha we brew is fra- 
grant with the friendship we plight to Eternity ! — 

And the wine is ensangjiijied of brotherly love as it beads 

the rare chalice — " Reunion ! " — 
And it sparkles with infinite bliss as it crimsons the 

patriofs commtmion. 



I20 VALKYRIA 

Better by far are these off'' rings, than pistachio souffles^ 
champagne frappdy and creams a la Viemia 

At the board of Formality only, where the heart is an 
alien there, and thrills with no love yet diviner ! 

The wine of this re-union vintage, is rarer than prince- 
liest persicot with poison 

Pour'd in by the traitorous hand that plights you love's 
faith, while you drain the deep draught of his trea- 
son ! 

More delicious its draughts than all the Rhine Wines 
that in the old cellars of Centuries golden, — 

For 'tis mellow'd to the boundless bouquet of Brotherly 
Love and its sanctified memories olden : 

The one a rich claret turn'd crimson with sin, subtle, — 

intoxicates the brain — 
The other^ diviner, is sealing the soul with a kiss that 

thrills you no subsequent pain. 



Ah! Not in the royal salons that gleam with the gold, 

and the gas, and the glory of Earth's Kings, 
Was the Feast of Fraternity spread ■ — nor yet in 

the lordliest halls of fair Southland! but with that 

" eternal fitness of things," 
(More befitting such Sovereigns ! more honor'd of 

Heroes !) — 'twas 'neath the white sweep of hospitable 

tent, 
fSuperb in simplicity, and wealthy of welcome as those 

where princeliest Patriarchs spent their pure lives of 

content.) . 



VALKYRIA. 121 

Fairly out from the deep throbbing heart of the City's 
wild rush and constant commotion, — 

Uplifted on the everlasting hills of their God, with the 
smile of His approval upon them, they plighted de- 
votion ! 

On the slope of Historic Hills, hallowed by the Blood 
of the Brave, dear alike to the Blue and the Grey, 

Where lately in fierce combat they had bloodily battled 
'till the waning of day. 

Upon the very brow of the bulwarks that had measured 

their brave battle-lines, 
Beneath the very skies over-arching, and the sighing 

^olian harps of the pines, 
Where many a brave brother had died defending the 

Cause his devotion appro v'd, 
Whfere daisies of April so starrily sentinel'd the first 

graves of those heroes they honor'd and lov'd ; 

They stood with clasp'd hands, and the olive-branch of 
peace, and tearfully plighted allegiance ever. 

In sweetest betrothal that sealeth the soul of Brothers 
and Union forever ! 

Upon the green sward of fair Southland, with the sun 
agleam through the day's gold'n bars, 

Or the balmiest of Autumnal nights, lit by the incom- 
parable candelabra of stars, — 

Far above the modes of political "plotting," bounded 
by no bargaining for " ballot," circumscrib'd neither 
by chicanery or conceit, 



122 VALKYRIA. 

And thrill'd by no traitorous intent, but soul-full of 

sympathy, and tenderest touches of truth hallow'd by 

memories sweet. 
Forgetting all bUghting or bitterness, pain or yet pride, 

forgiviitg defeat, or despair. 
They buried the Sectional Hatchet, crowning the ceno- ' 

taph with " Peace," sacred as the incense of pray'r ; 
And then in the Wine of the Feast quaffed they the 

eucharist of Love that hallows the Tried and the 

True, 
And no Evil uprising shall divorce them — the Hearts 

that were wedded at this wonderful bridal of the 

Grey and the Blue ! 

Then — back to the Halls of the Highest, and Haunts 

of the Honor'd - — to Salons of Splendor, and Boudoirs 

of Beauty, 
To stately reception, or revel after feast — to social 

saluting, or the mazes of dance, — ere back to the 

routine of duty ! 

Hark ! what clarion note is borne upon the Autumn 

breeze ? and the marshalling roll of drum ? 
See! the thousand banner'd ranks! with glitt'ring spear 

and gun — lo ! they come — they come. 
What? That field sown thick with an army's tents, 

white as the vales with April daisies 1 
See — the silent step and quick, as if in line-of-battle 

forming? the Stars-and-Stripes run up — an Eagle's 

crest it raises. 



VALKYR lA. 123 

" A-lac-a-day ! what army have we there, that rush to 

battle-fray ? " cries one with voice a-thrill with tears. 
Nay — in this we have no fare-wells that wring the 

heart in twain — rend not thy soul with fears ! 
Behold there glooms no sable flag! nor captive senti- 

nel'd : 'Tis — ah, 'tis the War of Wonders ! 
See ! — the colors uniform'd — all vary, — birds of tropic 

plumage ! there the red artillery — how the cannon 

thunders ! 

Ye shades of Stonewall and McPherson ! how the 
bayonets are brightly gleaming, 

While they " forward ! " — *' march ! " — to the merry 
martial music, and banners gaily streaming! 

No Blue and Grey contending^ but all the color-chord 
of prism'ic hues enray them, — white plumes ! Oh, 
happy ''' Peace r' 

Across calm summer-seas, in gold'n swan-prow'd gal- 
leys, now set we sail for isles of bliss, gay as the 
"Golden Fleece." 

For at last our Requier's . . . . " sceptred barges 
that bridally toss'' .... swiftly are sailing for 
the nuptials of the True, 

From betrothal to bridal, from ring to the altar, kneel- 
ing for the benediction there, that blesseth the Grey 
and the Blufe. 



O golden October 19th ! O gorgeous of Georgian Glory! 
Softest and sweetest of skies ! 



124 VALKYRIA, 

Smoothest and greenest of swards! (no cloudlet thy 
splendor retards !) O fairest of women ! and bravest 
of men ! how the hearts quiver at glancing of eyes ! 

No kill'd — nor yet wounded in this Battle without 
Blood, — save, it may be, by Cupid the Slayer ! 

And no spies are detected in crossing the "lines" — all 
know the countersign, — and no ransom is paid yet 
for Kiss the Betrayer ! 

Lo ! that triumphal march through the streets ! as 

from pavement to balcony a myriad fair faces are 

greeting ; 
Ah ! with what graceful precision they step — gaily 

advancing, on Oglethorpe Park, — awhile from the 

hum of the city retreating. 
Hark ! O that matchlessly marvellous music ! Lo ! they 

come, keeping time to the cymbal of smiles, and 

bewillcominnen they come ; 
With flashing of sword, glitt'ring of gun, streaming 

of banner and sash, nodding of plumes, and the 

rolling of drum ! 

Ho ! the quaint beauty of that prideful and venerable 
. . .. . "Phalanx" — the "Putnam!" royal in 
the old-fashion'd glory of our first Revolution ! 

But see — ah ! superb ! those moderns so graceful of 
movement — that ready Greek cross — the diamond^ 
triangles and stars ^ — O Janesville, lovely of evolu- 
tion! 



VALKYRIA. 125 

See the "Old Guard" — a splendid "detachment," 
representing New York, with our " Gate City 
Guard'" pride of Atlanta, close-stepping, and grand, 

And the "Richland Volunteers" — so handsomely 
styled, — with the steady magnificent " Rifles " of 
" Rochford " pridefully christen'd Le Gi'and ! 

So martially marching the " Governor's Guards " of 
soldierly bearing and brave ; and the " Washington 
Light Imfantry " imperial and showy — 

Impressively moving, and peerless, uniquely arrayed in 
their grenadier beavers, blue-trousers, and vesture so 
snowy ! 

See those splendid " Southern Rifles," so gracefully 
determin'd I while the " Eufaula Light Infantry " 
are pressing them close with en-fascinating power, — 

Just in advance of " Detroit Light Infantry " — 
Letoile du Nord — imperial in their princely white 
csdkos, and lacings of gold in rich dower ! 

There ! — come the " Janesville Guards " — (we 
repeat them) so pleasing, and perfect, and princely ! 
with the" Mobile Rifles" majestic and matchless as 
their City by the sea ! 

Nearer — and nearer the " Nashville Rifles " manoeu- 
ver, — the soul of all soldierly bearing, rife in their 
richness of royalty ! While superbly the " Sherman 
Cadets " — delightful to see — 

Their precision so perfect, and massive their front, so 
attractive withal — (sweet singing" quartettes," gal- 
lant-soul'd and much-sought !) 



126 VALKYRIA. • 

Preceding those grand "Montgomery Greys," splendid- 
ly-skill'd, and heroically-will'd, — (sacred with the 
mem'ries sweet of my own old War-Jwme, where for 
the Grey my tender girl-fingers have wrought.) 

Incomparable " Company B., " (Second Chicago) so 
splendidly train'd some thought them old regal West- 
Pointers whom valor had crown'd with many a laurel ; 

And then we acknowledge our charming companions 
" Companies A. and B.," (of attractive Atlantean 
Greys) — of course we declare them imperial I 

Surprisingly superb come the " Sedgwick Guards " — 
lovely, and unwavering of step (as devotion,) and 
patriotly we plight them our troth-plight ; — 

While — lo ! closing the pageant varied so richly — so 
gorgeous and grand, follows that favorite, the ** Fifth 
Artillery" (U. S. A.) — unique — and Atlanta's 
delight ! 

And somewhere in the throng marshal'd are the royal 
'' Richland Light Dragoons," — the " Floyd Rifles" 
knightly, and bonnie and brave ! — 

And the *' Nashville Dragoons " dignified and true, 
with " Howell's Artillery " — honor'd, — and ALL 
who came and right welcome, to the Feast that Fra- 
ternity gave ! 

" Bold is the venture, 

Splendid the pay ! 
And the soldiers go marching, 

Marching away ! " 



VALKYRTA. 127 

As proudly they pass in most splendid "review" before 
our most honored Executive of State, — 

And the hallowed hills echo the strains of all '' Hail to 
the Chief," as ever in Constance, we kiss our fair hand 
to that grandest of peageants so honor'd of late! 

(Lo ! our Dusky-brow'd Brothers ! crowned with the 
'^ thousand-blossom'd wreath of Freedom," who deep 
in the dear Long Ago, with faithful devotion serv'd 
us true and long, 

Now Sovereign, side by Sovereign, richly panoplied, 
marching so buoyant and gay, in regal review, with all 
that bannered and uniform'd throng ! 

Thank God, that at last ! they do wear that laureate 
" Wreath of Freedom 1 " their children, bound with no 
bonds, go forth to the favors of the Free ! 

And may with prideful perseverence, with earnest, true 
endeavor rise to the height of a Nation, a structure 
built for the World to see!) 



And if any chivalric company, or dignified detachment 
have unwittingly been left from the call of this roster 
imperfect, 

With additional laurels fresh from my Chaplets of 
Mars do I crown them, bloomful, immortal and per- 
fect! 

For .... "Clemency belongs to the brave" 

and bravely from the radiant East, to the roseate 
West, from Gotham to the Gulf of our grandest of 
lands, 



128 VALKYRIA, 

They have gathered their magnificient military might, 
— manly, noble, and heroic, — to the feast of their 
patriot love, hallow'd tfy holiest grasping of hands I 

Ah ! Le tout ensemble, — preeminently are they the 
flower, a multiple Victoria-regia, of rare American 
Militaire ! 

And, long as a soul of them throbs with the quick'ning 
joy of life, no changes shall woo them forgetful of the 
greetings that greeted, or friendships that fondly en- 
folded them there ! 

There^ on that tented fair field, in its wild and picturesque 
glory — and proud pathetic story — that sacred white 
convas'd-encampment of Reunion Knighthood, 

That doubly consecrated ground, first sanctified hy patnot 
blood and lastly by devotion of brothers reconciled, in 
the balm of that sweet Southern wood. 

" Let brotherly love coittinue',' . . . . " For this is the 
message that ye heard from the beginning, that we 
love one aftother!' Love pure and undefiled, ^/^ri"^ unto 
God, 

And then to thy neighbor as thyself ; '' And when the 
chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown 
of glory that fadeth not away," and, so, safely '* pass 
under the rod." 

Oy golden October ! ! ! with thy loves and thy glories im- 
mortal! as long as one stone of Memorial Hall re- 
mains standing, or the soul of a Gate City Guard 
with a patriot's love shall infinitely glow, 



VALKYRIA. 129 

The memories so sacredly sweet that cluster perpetu- 
ally round thee, shall thrill to the tenderest touches 
of a love that is measured by the Infinito ! 



Ay ! Sculptur'd with the glory this '* Reunion " hath 
wrought, — ** In perpetuam rei memoriam " — Memo- 
rial Hall ever shall lift her proud height ! 

While may the Chaplets I've woven for thee, immortal 
heroes! crown'd "CITIZEN SOLDIERY!" blos- 
som memoria in cBterna^ with fragrance so fadeless no 
changes can blight! 



(O ! ye Patriots and Brothers who consecrated the lay- 
ing of that memorable stone ! remember 'tis sacredly 
written, beloved, . . . . " Behold, I lay in Sion a chief 
corner-stone^ 

Elect, precious : and he that believeth on him shall not 
be confounded," and he that believeth and doeth, yet 
meekly, he it is also that "overcometh," and shall be 
Crown'd in the marvellous Light of the Throne ! 



With the pride and devotion of a patriot pure, wind the 
enjewell'd chains of your patriot love close and un- 
yielding round the anchor securing our Union — an 
inheritance of infinite value ; — 

And like your first zealous ancestors, defending its sacred 
and intrinsic rights to the life ! be thou ever awake 
to the drum-call of Honor's reveille I 



I30 VALKYRIA. 

Aye, as Benjamin wears the rare Mural-Crown of Judi- 
ciary Glory en wreathed with laurels of Honor, like- 
wise, brave brothers Militaire (that tyrants may 
flee ! ) 

Be thou the first to mount the high wall of Justice be- 
sieged, and there lodge your imperial standard for the 
World and its cycling Ages to see. 

Let nothing deter you in the lily-fring'd path of your 
duty, no bribe so glitt'ring that its flashing may tempt 
to dishonor, — no crime may encrimson with guilt I 

Nor treachery tarnish thy escutcheon now spotless! 
but thy record be wrought a pure sculpture, immacu- 
late and white, Christly and pure, for Eternity built I 



A year had drifted by, and yet no line had through the 
silence swept, nor echo thrill'd the space to tell her 
violets' fate. 

And Musa wed to Art and Ideals, at first expectant 
waited, now hopeful, now despairful ; then embalm'd 
her brok'n hopes and thought no more, till late. 

Of that " Apollo " to whom she sent the florets on their 
fragrant, mystic mission, or the dreams their sweet- 
ness might evoke : — 

But when her City's golden Gates swung wide to wel- 
come guests that sped from out the Northland, her 
buried dreams awoke, — 

And, as woman's willful heart will do, she queried soft- 
ly, sweetly, "Mother, I wonder if that "Willis" — 



VALKYRIA. 131 

patron proud of poesy, and patriot too, comes South 
with a]l that banner'd throng ? " 
And wondering still she fondly found her weaving fresh 
rich gossamers and cloth-of-gold arraying royally the 
mute but lovely Ideals that long had lived within her 
song. 



And, true to her faiths and their sanctified vows, Musa 
kept her troth-plight to Art, and wistful hath wrought 
long, winning her work to completion, — 

Her — " Ulemd " Limaria-crown d, — hath like a Minerva 
born of her brain, leapt to existence elated, and seal'd 
With, faith' s kisses, and hopes near fruition. 

Goes forth to the World, its Waiters and Watchers, and 
*' Willis," whom its marvellous truth may woo to do 
homage with Praise's caresses. 

And alike the fair Sheba en-laden with spiceries rarest, 
and burden of kingliest treasures to give, be wending 
their way to Daisywild cottage to adore with the 
presents that Fame's Epiphany blesses. 

(If one, en-sympathy with the Art enwreathed with 
Romance here, is wistful of the future being of Musa's 
loves, and faiths. 

Then wait : reveal' d they may be read in sequel sweet : 
unveiVd, they may be seen yet, a statue white Pygma- 
lion-kist to life — and flush'd with soulful sprays of 
love's rosy wraiths.) 



132 VALKYRIA, 

And as we hang our sweet memorial-garlands upon the 
hero-headstones, and wind them lovingly around the 
monumental-granite that rears a glory-gilded Cenotaph, 

In the " Holywoods " and " Oaklands " of Southland^ 
or the "Arlingtons" and "Marietta's" that mutely 
urn the Northland's dead, embalm'd in mem'ries sweet 
as dreams, that thrill the soul of some rosy-wing'd 
seraph, 

So would I weave my Chaplets, Mars-becrimson'd and 
tied with Fancy's fillets, about the flow'rs of Poesie, 
and work their Persian patterns into the soft Grey 
tapestries 

That hang in Dixie's halls ; or from a Titian palette 
of colors true and tender, dash all the Blue back- 
grounds (like Leonardo da Vinci's) with the moun- 
tain grandeur that rises Northward, and (while others 
sing of love's infinite myst'ries). 

Leave my bit of landscape with all its little coves and 
inlets that dimple sapphire-Blue, all lily-fring'd and 
flank'd, to hang in some poetic nook along the halls 
historic, (may-be) 

Of some far, serene Centennial, when all our hopes are 
Heaven-fulfil'd, and all my Heroes here are Crowned 
to Life-Unfading in that ineffable Eternity ! 



Thus, by all that's beautiful in woman's faith! by all 
that's patriotic truth ! all that's first in love, first in 



VALKYRIA. 135 

faith, brave in all life's battles, true of test ; and oh \ 
by all that's sacred to our Union ! I plight thee now> 
My Brothers, Blue or Grey, from the villa-broider'd 
Hudson, to the orange-girdled Gulf, the while I weave 
my flora-mour 'mong the glory-budding laurels that 
begirt each soldier-brow. 



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